“You can go, white man,” the Indian said in well-enunciated English.
Jeremy frowned, surprised by his excellent English, and more surprised by the mercy he seemed to be receiving.
“Just like that, I can ride away?”
“I am Buffalo Run. Remember my name.”
“And if I mount this horse and turn my back to you, I will still live to remember your name?”
“You would be a dead man now if I chose it so. Maybe you will even choose to understand. We are raided, and so we raid. Our lands are ceded to us and then snatched away, so we seek to take them back. You fought a brave battle. You would not kill a man who could not see his death. You will not die by my hand, white man. Ever.” He suddenly extended his buckskinclad arm, then pushed up the sleeve. Jeremy stared in fascination as one of the other young bucks brought up a sharply bladed hunting knife. Buffalo Run slashed his arm deeply and offered it up to Jeremy.
Jeremy had heard of the custom. Blood brothers. It meant they would fight no more. He took the knife and ripped up his cavalry sleeve. Buffalo Run’s slash had been deep. He made his equally so, looking at the Indian, taking great care not to flinch even as he felt the pain. He melded his arm to Buffalo Run’s.
“Go back. Tell them to leave me in peace.”
“They will not believe that a Comanche seeks peace.”
“Tell them anyway.”
“I will try.”
“We will meet again.”
Jeremy didn’t think so. The rumble of war was already growing deeper back home—he knew that the government would start sending troops eastward very soon. He’d already determined that he’d do his best not to fight in Maryland or Virginia, but he knew he’d soon be sent back to a battle line.
He mounted bareback the paint pony he had been given. He didn’t turn around. He knew that no arrow would pierce his back, no shot would be fired, no knife would fly.
As it happened, he did see Buffalo Run again. He was sent with a commission to visit Buffalo Run’s father. Jeremy sat in the Comanche village, fascinated. He had come to know the people of many Indian tribes, especially the Cherokee, members of the “Five Civilized” Tribes! Their manners were gracious, their desire for learning was a deep thirst.
The Comanche were different. They were a warlike tribe, and the chief’s tent was decorated with many war drums, across which stretched animal sinews that held any number of human scalps. Many were Indian scalps. The Comanche went to war against the Apache and other Indian tribes, as well as the white man.
Tonight, they were invited guests. No one commented on the scalps—few of them could. White men in the West were sometimes as quick to take them as Indian braves. There was also a rumor that the taking of scalps had spread west from the East—that the first white settlers had started the custom by scalping Pamunkey Indians. Jeremy found such a thought difficult to stomach, but in his heart he knew that he had met both white men and Indians capable of taking scalps, and so he could not discount the rumor completely.
Buffalo Run greeted him with a nod. He spent a day in the sweat lodge with Buffalo Run and his father and brothers and other cavalry, and he sat for hours around a fire listening to the singsong of the shaman’s chants. The medicine man threw powders from his bag upon the fire, causing it to flare up. They drank some concoction the Indians had brewed, and Jeremy saw—as the Indians had suggested that he would—many things in the flames.
It was an interesting occasion for Jeremy. He knew that many white men felt the only good Indians were dead ones, but he had seen many commendable things even among the savage Comanche. They were a fiercely loyal people, protective of their own and fearless when they were threatened.
He inadvertently received a valuable lesson that night too. When the cool night breeze soothed his flesh after the hours of the sweat lodge, Buffalo Run told him that the Comanche had been watching. They had watched the tribes come west of the Mississippi. They had watched Andrew Jackson try to strip Florida of the Seminole, they had seen the Cree taken from Georgia. Then they had seen the white man lick his lips and try to shove the Indians ever farther west.
“None can be believed,” Buffalo Run told him. When a white man sees an Indian village and destroys it, he tries hard to murder the children for they will grow to be braves. And he tries harder to murder the women, for they will carry the future generations.”
“Not all white men!” Jeremy protested. He pointed out that Indians were known for equal cruelty. In fact, part of the reason they had come was for the return of a young Texan girl.
Buffalo Run told him that neither did all Comanche choose to kill young people. Young white boys could grow to be fine braves, and young women the mothers of fierce warriors.
His mother had been one. The white man had come to rescue her, and she had refused to leave Buffalo Run’s father. “The choice was hers. She saw the two worlds, and she knew.”
“I find your tribe admirable,” Jeremy told him.
They parted that night, intrigued with one another. They met up one more time on the plain, right before Jeremy came home. Buffalo Run was amused. “They mock us that we are all alike, and that Indians make war upon Indians. Now you will go home and fight your brothers.” He pointed to Steven Terry, a friend of Jeremy’s from Alabama. “You will fight one another. Shoot one another. Take your swords and bleed one another.”
“It doesn’t give us any pleasure,” Jeremy said. He felt forced to explain. “We are fighting for ideals. For the whole of our nation.”
“You will band together, all you different tribes, on either side of a line. One day, white man, you should take care. The Indians might well band together too.”
When he had headed back east, he had spent much of the journey thinking about Buffalo Run. He understood many of the things that the Indian had said to him. For one, the whites were always overestimating the number of Indians. Some chronicler had written down that there were twenty thousand Comanche in Buffalo Run’s territory. There were, perhaps, four hundred.
But Buffalo Run had given him fair warning too. The Indians could band together. The Comanche could band with the Kiowa and the Apache and others, and then they would indeed be a powerful force. Perhaps the alliance could spread north and farther west. Navaho and Hopi could join in, and Cheyenne and Black Feet and Oglala Sioux.
Someday, if the Indians were pushed too far, it could happen.
But then Jeremy had come home. He’d had a long leave to be with his family. They’d all been home, he, Josh, Josiah, and Callie. There had been long sweet days when he had gone back to an earlier time, tilling fields with his brothers, listening to his father read into the night, even indulging in a food fight when they put together a picnic on the lawn, laughing when they’d all managed to miss one another completely and catch Callie right on the nose with a blancmange. She’d managed to pay back the lot of them with a meringue pie, and then they’d all been sorry that they lost out on dessert. Their father had indulged them, smoking his pipe, watching with knowing eyes.
They’d all been there to see Callie wed to Michaelson, beautiful in her white, and then they’d all been together one last time to say good-bye and then leave Callie all alone as they traveled off to join their companies in distant fields.
Their father had been the first to fall. Then Michaelson, then Josiah. Their losses had been great. Yet all that was behind them now. The war was over. Callie had found Daniel—or Daniel had found Callie. Men and women struggled to understand, to come to grips with the war.
Admittedly, some men struggled still to see the South pay for all that had happened. It was said that Sherman’s men had gone into South Carolina with an especial vengeance.
Some Yanks, like Christa’s carpetbaggers, would take advantage of the South’s defeat. Those in high political places would take their revenge against the men they held captive, like Jefferson Davis. Some Rebels would never surrender, like those he had heard were heading for South America to form a new
Confederacy there. Like Christa herself.
He sighed, ready to kick himself again. He’d had her right where he wanted her. In so many things she was the dutiful wife, not because she gave a damn about being dutiful to him, but because she was determined to prove that a Cameron could do anything. She was an extraordinary cavalry wife. Hell, tarantulas hadn’t sent her screaming, they had intrigued her. Buffalo hadn’t brought about the first flicker of fear in her eyes.
She had faced Yankees. Nothing else compared to that ordeal.
She slept with him every night because she was his wife. She never protested his touch. But night after night he felt the passion simmering there, felt that she could be magnificent, that he had only to coax her surrender.
And that was it, of course, in a nutshell. Christa was not about to surrender.
Yet he had come so close. There had been a languorous look in her crystal-blue eyes. She had leaned against him so softly, she had sighed, moved so sweetly. The slightest smile had curved her lips, and even the promise that she might return the least of his desire had sent a near-maddened longing to his senses. He must have been insane. He had said the hated name. Sherman.
Dammit, he mentioned Grant’s name all the time. He had served almost directly under Grant during most of the war, having been his aide-de-camp for a few months before he had been ordered directly to logistics. He talked about Sheridan. They talked about battles around the campfires sometimes, and Christa had never reacted so violently.
Maybe because his men were gentlemen for the most part, he thought, especially his officers. In all this time, there had never been a negative comment made about the Rebs. The North had won. His men were willing to speak the truth. The Rebs had been damned fine fighters and their leadership had been extraordinary. Jackson and Lee would go down in the history of military annals, just like Stuart with his magnificent, lightning cavalry raids. So many men were dead, blue and gray. It seemed the kindest thing was to offer them up a salute for their honor and let them rest. In her way, he thought, even Christa saw this.
Damn. He just couldn’t wait until later to mention Sherman’s name.
The fires were burning lower. The air was beautiful, but growing colder. He stared back at the camp. All was well. A horse whinnied from somewhere. The scene was peaceful.
Somewhere out there, he knew, Buffalo Run watched his movements.
And tomorrow he had Sherman and his party of officers arriving. It would be a very long day.
His set his jaw, his teeth grating. He was the ranking officer. He’d be expected to entertain Sherman. Christa would have to swallow hard and accept it.
But what if she didn’t?
He determined that he’d best be prepared for the worst.
Jaffe, he thought, would be doing the cooking for the general’s arrival.
He started back along the water, through the myriad tents of the enlisted men, and finally to his own.
Robert Black Paw, silent and nearly blending in with the shadows of the tent, saluted him and slipped past him. His vigil was over.
When Jeremy slipped inside, he found that she had doused the kerosene lamp on his desk, making it difficult for him to move about in the darkness. He would manage.
He crawled into their camp bed, wondering for a wild second if she would be there. Yes, of course, she would. Though she didn’t know it, Robert always kept vigil, and if she had thought to go somewhere, Jeremy would have known it long ago.
No, she was there. As his eyes adjusted to the total darkness, he realized she was bundled from throat to toe in a flannel nightgown. She was as far to her side of the bed as she could manage and her back was to him. She was awake, he was certain. She was lying there too tensely to be asleep.
He leaned close to her. But before he could say a word, she whispered fiercely, “Touch me, and I’ll scream until every man in this camp is awake!”
“My love, I am far too weary to touch you tonight. You should know that I don’t give a damn if you scream until you’re hoarse. In fact, princess, I have a word of warning for you. Be courteous tomorrow. Be courteous, or I will tan your hide. I will do so with an audience of dozens of men, and I will not care in the least what a single one of them has to say. Am I understood?”
“You wouldn’t—”
“Dare. Yes, I would. But don’t worry about your precious solitude this evening. My pillow offers far more comfort and warmth! But take care tomorrow!”
He turned on his own side. He didn’t touch her. The inch between them lay like a great chasm.
* * *
General William Tecumseh Sherman arrived with a small party of officers and their wives, some who would now be joining Jeremy’s ranks, and some who would be moving on with the general.
He arrived early and was greeted with a bugle salute. The men not on guard duty presented him with a show of their horsemanship.
Christa was not with Jeremy. He had slipped from bed while it was still dark to dress, and he had mounted his bay to ride out with James Preston to meet the approaching party as soon as the messenger had arrived to announce the imminent appearance of the great general.
He was an interesting man. A ruthless one in his way, Jeremy thought, but not an exceptionally cruel one, and certainly not cruel by choice. Like so many others, Sherman showed the wear of the war on his face. It was deeply lined, never a really handsome face, but now one with haggard cheeks beneath a full beard and mustache and with soul-weary eyes that looked upon the world with a weary wisdom.
He was accompanied by a Lieutenant Jennings and his wife, Clara, Captain and Mrs. Liana Sinclair, Captain and Mrs. Rose Claridge, and two bachelor officers, Captain Martin Staples and Captain Dexter Lawrence.
The younger women, Liana Sinclair and Rose Claridge, were both charming and sweet, if somewhat wide-eyed and ill-prepared for the rigors of the western roads. Liana giggled a bit excessively for Jeremy’s taste, and Rose shivered every other minute. Yet both ladies seemed pleasant enough.
Clara Jennings, however, was a virago.
Jeremy had been in their company for not more than ten minutes before she had managed to complain about the ruts in the road, the dirty taste of the water from the streams, and the awful way they had been bumping along since coming into Comanche territory. Jeremy chanced a glance at Sherman and realized that the general was going to be overjoyed to leave the woman behind.
Through the presentations and ceremonies, Sherman was polite and cheerful due to the presence of the ladies. Despite a generally stern nature, Sherman could be a very polite and pleasant social companion when he chose to be.
But toward midafternoon, the ladies were escorted to their newly erected tents, and when he and the other officers sat around the field tent drinking coffee, he was much more blunt.
“Colonel McCauley, there is going to be trouble ahead for you. It’s as clear as day, the handwriting is on the wall. Comanche.”
“I’ve heard that Buffalo Run is on the warpath. They warned me about him in Little Rock. Has something else happened?”
Sherman waved a hand in the air. “A great deal has happened, sir. Some regrettable. Some, perhaps, unavoidable. Captain Miller, in charge of Company B of the Third, raided one of the Comanche villages. I understand that his men panicked and that it turned into a slaughter. It’s been said that Buffalo Run promised retaliation. Now, you know my stand on the Indian issue pretty much, I think.”
“Yes, I think I do, General.” Sherman was a soldier, first and always. He didn’t mind the Indians who behaved—those who bowed to the white decree and obediently went to live on their reservations. But he intended to be hell on those who were determined to go their independent way. Sherman knew that Jeremy felt far more sympathy for the Indians and the loss of their way of life than he did, although he didn’t agree. From some of the things that Sherman had written and said, Jeremy was certain that he actually favored extinction of the tribes who continued to be warlike. Sherman was a man who tended to rese
nt the point of view of another man, especially when it disagreed with his.
Lieutenant Jennings, the middle-aged man saddled with the harridan, Clara, made a sound and pointed his pipe at Jeremy. “Colonel, I believe I saw some of his work not an hour’s ride from here. We couldn’t detour much from our path with the ladies present, but I saw smoke rising and I rode out a bit. If I’m not mistaken, I saw smoke. I’m not sure where off the trail, but I’m sure that some mischief was afoot.”
Jeremy was damned sure of it. He’d heard of Captain Miller. The man hated Indians, he’d had a brother killed in a prewar clash with them. Buffalo Run was sure to be on the warpath if one of his villages had been raided, if the innocent, women, children, and the aged, had been killed.
“I wish you had mentioned it earlier,” Jeremy commented. It was too late to send his men out tonight. He’d send a party out with Robert Black Paw in the morning. If anyone could find the faint embers of a dying fire, it would be Robert.
“Gentlemen, perhaps we should retire for an hour. Sergeant Jaffe has taken it upon himself to create an excellent dinner, and I believe that Celia Preston is arranging entertainment. She determined to drag her spinet out to her husband’s new post. We’ve also a fiddle player and some of our men are talented harmonica players. After everyone has freshened up, we can meet again at the officers’ mess tent.”
Jeremy rose and the others joined him, filing out. Sherman was watching him. “I look forward to this evening. It’s my understanding that you have wed one of the most beautiful women to reside on either side of the Mason-Dixon line. I regret that I’ve yet to meet her.”
Don’t regret it! Jeremy thought. He smiled stiffly. “My wife is very beautiful. She is—she is with child. In the early stages, sir, but you know women and their moods.”
Sherman laughed, rubbing his beard. “I know she’s a Cameron, and a Rebel one at that. I imagine it will be a lively evening.”