Cheyenne Captive (49 page)

Austin wiped sweat from his face. “We’re grateful to get the water, Mr. Landry, so the United States Army will provide food tonight. We’ll have a little party! Sergeant Meridith, have the men make camp.”

One of the men helped Mrs. O’Malley down from the wagon and she clucked like a fat, fluffy hen. “Saints preserve us! You folks living out here all alone?”

The woman’s eyes followed Summer’s hands as she shook the dust from her fine skirt. “Oh, we ain’t alone, missus,” she said. “There’s another family five miles down the creek. We seen them just last Christmas.”

Austin took off his hat and slapped it against his leg and the dust billowed. He saw another soddy a few hundred feet from the house with a rope tied between.

“What’s that for?”

The man sighed and scratched his weather-beaten face. “That’s the barn. You got to have a rope to follow in a blizzard or you get lost.” He looked sad and pensive. “We lost Bobby that way last January. I guess he went out to feed the cow and let go of the rope. Didn’t find him till the thaw in early March.” His eyes went to a mound on a nearby rise with two small sticks tied in a handmade cross.

As the men went about their jobs of setting up the camp, the scout lit a cigar. Austin noted the way Landry’s eyes watched it hungrily, then looked away. The scout didn’t offer the settler a smoke.

“Mr. Landry,” Austin said, “I hate to smoke alone. If you’ve got a pipe, I brought along a lot of extra tobacco that I’d like to give you in exchange for your hospitality.”

The scrawny man frowned. “Don’t take no charity.”

“Got plenty!” Austin lied. “I’d be offended if you didn’t join me for a smoke. I believe the sergeant probably even has a little whiskey in that wagon somewhere.”

“Wal,” the man said, licking his lips eagerly, “just so’s you won’t be offended and to be sociable like!”

It became a party and Austin enjoyed himself immensely. The sergeant saw to it that there was plenty of food and the patrol pretended not to see the way the starved family gobbled everything in their mess kits. One of the little boys stared at the big sack of sugar and Austin pretended not to notice when he saw Summer slipping it out of the wagon and into the soddy. So what if the patrol ran out of sugar before they found a town again?

He watched Summer digging out a dress for the woman, explaining it would not fit her anymore and she’d only throw it away anyhow because it was so old. Austin smiled gently at her kindness. The expensive dress was almost new. Summer had bought it a few weeks ago while he trailed along behind her on a shopping trip.

After supper, Sergeant Meridith got out his harmonica and played “Listen to the Mockingbird.” Before the evening was finished, he taught the oldest child to play it, too. The rest of them sat around and talked beside a fire that was fueled by cow and buffalo chips. There wasn’t a tree within eyesight except for three cottonwoods on the dry creek. That night as they sat around the fire, they saw a big, lonely lobo silhouetted on a small rise howling at a bright spring moon that hung like a twenty-dollar gold piece over the flat prairie.

The next morning before they rode out, Austin had the sergeant cut the biggest, sturdiest horse out of the small remuda the patrol had brought along.

“Just say the army appreciates your hospitality,” Austin said when the farmer protested. “No use ruining a good milk cow.”

They mounted up and the lanky sergeant reached down and gave his harmonica to the small boy.

“Are you sure you people will be all right out here, Mr. Landry?” Summer asked anxiously. “Wouldn’t you like to go on to the next settlement with us?”

“And give up our farm?” His weather-beaten face questioned her incredulously.

“I know it don’t look like much now.” The thin woman stood proudly in her new dress and rubbed one big, bare foot against the other. “But we’ll make a go of it. That’s what built this country, folks like us.

“Yes sirree!” The man put an arm around his wife proudly. “We’re partners, me and the wife! Share and share alike! Someday, there’ll be folks all over Kansas and someone might be proud to know their kinfolks helped build this state!”

Austin was impressed by their bravado. He touched his hat in salute and led the patrol out. The four people looked very small standing together on the vast plain as the group rode away. For at least a mile, they could hear the faint, off-key sound of the harmonica.

It seemed forever they rode toward the Rockies, looming up ahead of them, before they finally started moving from flat plains to high elevations. They ran across a new mining camp every few miles. They always stopped to ask if anyone had seen or heard of Todd Shaw, left a description, and told of the reward. No one had heard or knew anything about Austin’s brother. Too many men roamed the Rockies and many of them did not want their names known.

Finally, on a fast flowing, icy creek a few miles south of the new town of Denver, they found yet another mining camp.

“Hallo the camp!” the scout shouted and immediately a dozen or more grizzled faces appeared from everywhere.

“Look, it’s an army patrol!”

“Hey, they got women with them! White women!”

“White women? I ain’t seen nothing but squaws for months!”

Five of them scrambled from the cold stream and dropped their gold pans, running to meet the visitors. Austin smiled as he dismounted among the tall spruce trees. The miners surrounded him eagerly, asking for news of the outside world. He helped Summer from her horse and kept her protectively by his side. Still, the miners ganged around her just to stare at her beauty. Another group ran to help Mrs. O’Malley from the wagon and the woman reddened with pleasure, obviously never having had that sort of rapt attention before.
A woman was a rare and valuable item on the frontier, which made the Western men appreciates and treat their ladies much better than their Eastern counterparts,
Austin decided.

The arrival took on a festive atmosphere and no one did any more work that day. The miners roasted a deer and made something called Sonvagun stew that Summer pronounced delicious although Austin ate it hesitantly, not sure he wanted to know what it contained. He was just too civilized to relish the raw, frontier world although he had to admit the freedom of the wild appealed to him.

That night they sat around the fire and discussed events in the outside world and the fact that this area would fight on the side of the North should a war begin.

Now a miner brought out an old fiddle and someone passed a jug around. As the fiddler struck up a chorus of “Oh! Susannah,” the lanky sergeant bowed before Summer.

“With the lieutenant’s permission, I’d like the honor of dancing with his lady.”

“Oh, I really don’t feel like dancing,” she protested.

But Austin urged her on. “Go ahead, dear! All these men will want to dance with you. They don’t see a white woman very often and you might hurt their feelings.”

So Summer stood and went out in the dirt circle by the fire and immediately the men lined up for a chance to dance with her.

A group also formed around Mrs. O’Malley and the expression on her face was pleased as the men fought over who got the next dance. She puffed her way through a few songs until she was breathless.

As in most mining camps where there weren’t enough women to go around, some of the men tied handkerchiefs around their arms to designate them as “ladies” for the evening so there would be partners for everyone.

Austin watched the light flicker on Summer’s golden hair, thinking how he would love to tangle his fingers in it and then frowned guiltily.
No, that was a savage thing to think. Mother would not approve at all.

A bearded old miner with a crippled left hand came over and sat down next to Austin. “Now what did I hear you was doin’ up here, Lieutenant?”

“I’m looking for my brother Todd.” He sighed. How many times had he told the story?

The old miner scratched his beard. “What is he wanted for? He kill somebody?”

Austin noted the caution in the man’s voice. The frontiersmen protected their own.

“No! No!” Austin reached for his pipe. “He really is my brother and he hasn’t done anything wrong! My mother’s worried something has happened to him, is all, and we want him to come back East temporarily so he can be best man at my wedding.”

The thought annoyed Austin.
He really wanted David in that position of honor. Could he never win an argument with his mother?

The miner grinned. “You marryin’ that purty thing?” He motioned with his crippled hand toward Summer.

Austin cleared his throat as he nodded. “The only thing holding us up right now is finding my brother. There’s a reward—”

“Hell, mister.” The miner laughed. “We all already got more gold than we can spend! Not that there’s much to spend it on, although there’s a new fancy house in Denver that’s really worth the price when we get up there now and then.”

“A fancy house?” Austin didn’t understand for a moment.

“You know!” The miner gave him a broad wink. “Most popular place in Denver! Run by some Spanish duchess who appeared out of nowhere a few months ago, I understand. Becoming one of the richest, most important women in town, they say!”

“Oh.” Austin tried not to redden as the man’s meaning became clear. He didn’t mean to be a prude, he just couldn’t help the way he felt about women. He’d never actually had one yet although the West Point boys had gotten him as far as the front door of a whorehouse before he panicked and left. The image came to him again of Summer in the throes of passion in a savages’s arms and he couldn’t bear the thought that another man had had her before him.
But he loved her enough that he would try not to hold it against her, never throw it in her face.

“Is it possible you might have run across my brother anywhere here in the Rockies?” Austin asked, fumbling with his pipe. He didn’t want to think about Summer making love to another man.

The old miner ran his tongue over his lips as they both watched the dancers. “Well, I did see a handsome young fellow at the duchess’s place that didn’t seem to quite belong with the rest of us. He was a little too refined, if you know what I mean. Just a minute, let me ask my partner what he remembers. Hey, Bill. Come here!”

A bent man with a slight limp paused in clapping his hands and came over to them. “What’s going on?”

“You remember that young fellow, the good-lookin’ one with the funny accent at the duchess’s place?”

The other’s lean face took on a guarded expression. “Yeah, I remember him. What’s he wanted for?”

“Nothin’!” The other laughed. “This here’s his brother, tryin’ to find him. What do you remember about him?”

“Well.” The other wrinkled his face thoughtfully as the music whined on. “He was good-lookin’, sort of a dandy, I’d say, but a regular fella. Everybody liked him. He’s workin’ for Byers at the newspaper, the
Rocky Mountain
News
.”

Austin couldn’t control the excitement in his voice as he gestured with his pipe. “That sounds like him. Can you remember any more?”

The miner spat tobacco juice to one side. “Name’s Tom, I think.”

“Could it have been Todd?” Austin asked.

The man’s eyes lit up. “That’s the name! Todd! Do believe he mentioned something about Boston but he said he liked the West and the newspaper business.”

Austin stood up, excited. “That’s got to be him! How far is it on to Denver, anyway?”

The first miner took a swig from the jug as it passed him. “Oh, a couple of days north of here, more or less.”

Austin turned toward the dancers just as the big scout tried to cut in on Summer and the miner she danced with. Summer stopped abruptly, gave Dallinger a look of cold hatred, and stalked out of the circle.

“Summer!” Austin said excitedly, “they’ve seen Todd! He’s up in Denver!”

“Austin, I’m so glad!” She took his arm and they walked away from the dancers. “Is he all right?”

“He sounds like he’s having the time of his life,” Austin said as they walked through the shadowy spruce, away from the fire. They stopped and he knocked the ashes from his pipe and slipped it in his pocket. “We’ll leave for Denver at daybreak, but it sounds like he’s not going to want to leave this area.”

Summer paused and looked up at him. “I don’t blame him,” she said almost wistfully. “I love it here, too. I wish I could stay forever!”

She was standing close enough that he could smell the faint lily of the valley perfume she wore and the clean smell of her golden hair over the woodsy spruce scent around them. He took both her hands in his, looked down into her small, heart-shaped face intently. Austin could feel himself trying to hang onto her and it was like grabbing futilely at star dust. “You are coming back to Boston and marrying me, aren’t you, Summer?” he asked almost desperately.

Was there the slightest hesitation in her voice?
“Of course, Austin.” But she didn’t sound too sure. “I’ll need something to do with my time, though. Would you mind terribly if I went back to my women’s rights meetings?”

Austin felt horrified but he tried not to let it show in his eyes. “What would that do to a future politician, to have his wife involved in something like that? Why, when you were arrested before, Mother said . . .”

He let his voice trail off without finishing as he saw the fiery spark in Summer’s eyes and the stubborn set of her chin.

“It has suddenly occurred to me anyway,” she said, “that when votes for women are finally won, it won’t be in civilized places like New York and Boston. No, it’ll be here on the frontier where men really appreciate women and are willing to share with them as equal partners!”

“Now, Summer, you know I would never mistreat you—”

“No!” she flared, “but mentally, you’ve got your foot on my neck and I don’t like it! Maybe the reason I have so much trouble getting along in Boston is not my fault, maybe it’s Boston’s! Perhaps like the little pioneer family we saw on the plains, I ought to be in an area where a man would be ashamed to treat me as an inferior simply because I’m a woman!”