Christine Dorsey (2 page)

She wanted to fire a warning shot. But then she’d have to reload, and by that time the stranger would be in the house, emptying his pistol into Will and her.

“He ain’t stopping, Sam!”

She could see that! He was almost upon them, his powerful horse lathered and snorting, the sun gleaming off the pistol wavering in the air.

She’d have to shoot him. The realization came to her the same moment she heard Will yell for her to do it. Samantha thought of Pa and of Luke. They’d shot men, surely. They’d...

“The barrel throws to the left,” Samantha mumbled to herself as she took aim. She’d never hit him. She never hit anything. Her older brother Luke used to take her behind the corn crib and try to teach her to shoot. But she never got the hang of it. And now Luke was dead. Killed the second time the armies clashed at Bull Run, fighting men dressed in gray... like the stranger riding toward her.

The deafening explosion from the gun startled Samantha. The stock slammed into her shoulder, and the smoke stung her eyes. From somewhere in the back of her mind came the warning to reload, but she couldn’t make her fingers move.

“You got him. You got him, Sam!” Will jumped up beside her. He sounded as surprised as she felt. He lurched toward the door, but not fast enough to escape his sister’s grasp. “Let me go, Sam.” Will wriggled, but Samantha only clung more tightly to his cotton shirt.

“Maybe he’s not alone.” Samantha let loose of her brother when her words sank in. Jumping to her feet, she reached for the ramrod, pulling it clear of the musket with trembling fingers. Luke had taught her to load the musket, and the process was almost second nature. But not today. Not with a man lying out under the hot Kansas sun. A man she’d shot.

When Will reached for the musket, Samantha gave it up readily. Let him do the loading... she’d do the killing. Working quickly and efficiently, Will poured gunpowder and shot into the ancient gun—the gun her great-grandfather had used at Breed’s Hill. Will handed it back, acknowledging her nod of thanks, and looked toward the door.

Will’s excitement had drained when she’d pointed out the possibility of more men coming after their fallen comrade. But as minutes passed, and no horse’s hooves thundered into the yard, he seemed anxious to check outside.

And Samantha couldn’t let the man lie there forever.

She glanced through the window and saw him... face up in the dust. He’d lost his hat, probably when he fell from the horse. His hair was brown, light, streaked from the sun, ruffling every now and again as the wind sifted through it.

But that was the only thing about him that moved.

Oh God, she had killed a man!

Samantha tried not to think of that as she opened the door. It was cooler outside than in the house. Cool, and pleasant, with birds singing, and puffy white clouds billowing across the sky. Cradling the heavy musket on one arm, and using the other to shade her eyes, Samantha scanned the horizon. No spirals of dust thrown up by galloping horses marred the landscape. Whatever prompted Moore to send this man back, Moore obviously thought he could handle it alone.

What would Landis Moore do to them when he discovered what had happened?

A shiver of fear ran through Samantha as she moved toward the stranger. Cautiously. The gun aimed at his prostrate body, her finger on the trigger.

“I ain’t never seen this one before.”

Will’s words made Samantha study the stranger. She’d never seen him before either. His face was lean, she could tell that even through the layer of dust and the whiskers shadowing his jaw. Lean and deathly still.

She moved closer, kicking his pistol out of reach and nudging his arm with her musket.

“You think he’s dead?”

“I don’t know.” Samantha swallowed, forcing herself to look at his blood-covered chest. Scarlet soaked into the butternut gray of his jacket. “Here.” She shoved the musket toward Will. “I’m going to see for sure. You watch him.” Samantha wiped her hands down the sides of her drab brown skirt, and knelt on one knee.

A few yards away the stranger’s horse whinnied, and Samantha’s reaction made her realize how nervous she was. She took a deep breath, and reached out to touch the man’s cheek.

It happened so quickly Samantha had no time to fight. She was grabbed and flopped over onto the packed ground. Her head hit the dirt, painfully, bringing tears to her eyes. Air whooshed from her lungs. And something hard, and heavy, loomed over her, pressing against her.

The stranger.

She could smell him, his sweat and his blood... and his fear. His breath rasped harshly in her ears, almost blocking out Will’s frantic cries.

“Should I shoot him? Should I shoot him?”

Samantha tried to answer, but couldn’t form the words.

Then she opened her eyes and looked straight into the stranger’s. They were green, pale green like the spring leaves on a cottonwood tree, and they were the saddest eyes she’d ever seen. Deep and clear, they held her mesmerized. The sounds of the day, Will’s near-hysterical voice, the birds, the horse calmly munching grass, blurred, and became hazy. Samantha tried to hold on to reality, but she couldn’t.

Then his eyelids fluttered shut, hiding from her those sad, sad eyes, and the momentary glimpse of his unhappy soul. His weight crushed down on her, ending her fanciful thoughts. She yelled for Will to help roll him off her.

“Did he hurt you? Jeez, Sam, I didn’t know what to do.”

“You did right.” Samantha brushed dirt off her skirt and looked down at the stranger. He was unconscious now, flopped over on his side, and Samantha could almost believe she’d imagined that moment when their eyes met.

“I didn’t know if I should shoot him or what.” Will still held the musket, and Sam could sense the effort it took for him not to shake. Stepping away from the man, Samantha draped her arm around Will.

“There was nothing you could do, Will. He didn’t hurt me.” All this had been so hard on Will. He’d been too young to be without a mother when Ma died, too young to understand when Pa was killed... and then Luke.

“What are we going to do with him?” Will’s question reminded Samantha that the bushwhacker couldn’t be ignored. He was unconscious, but not dead. She could see the telltale rise and fall of his chest as he breathed.

And honest to God, she didn’t know whether to be sad or glad about it. If he were dead, they could just bury him, and hope no one linked his disappearance to them. Of course there was little hope of that since Moore had sent him.

“We could take him into town,” Will offered, looking down at the man, then back to Sam.

“How?” Samantha sighed. “You know the wagon has a broken wheel, and besides...” Sam paused to wipe her face and realized her hands were covered... with the stranger’s blood. She rubbed her palms down her skirt. “And besides, Sheriff Hughes isn’t going to like us bringing a wounded Rebel soldier into town.”

There was no need to elaborate. It was common knowledge that Hager’s Flats’ sheriff had Southern leanings. His ability to look the other way when Moore’s gang terrorized pro-Union families made Samantha detest the man.

“We could take him into the house.”

“No!” Samantha softened her voice. “No, I don’t want him in the house.” Sad eyes or no, she couldn’t forget that Moore’s men had killed her father, or that men wearing gray had killed her brother. “We’ll pull him into the barn... and keep him tied, too!”

“Tied? But he’s wounded and—”

“And we’d most likely be dead if he weren’t. You remember that, Will.” Samantha grabbed hold of the stranger’s arms. “You take his legs.”

Together they dragged and pulled him into the sod barn. Once as they crossed the yard, the stranger opened his eyes. But they were dull from pain, and he only groaned before drifting back into unconsciousness.

“Where?” Will was out of breath from carrying his share of the load, and so was Samantha. The man was heavy even though he seemed too thin. But then she guessed war had a way of doing that to people. Goodness knows, she and Will had gone hungry a time or two. And now with the garden ruined... Sam tried not to worry about that as she motioned toward an empty stall.

When they first moved to Kansas, there were horses and mules to fill every space in the barn. Now there were just Pru and Hope, the mules; Lovey, the mare; and Faith, a moon-eyed cow. And now the stranger’s horse.

Samantha dropped his arms. “I’ll muck out the stall and throw in some clean straw,” she said, wiping the dampness from her forehead with her sleeve. But Will had already started, and with a word of thanks, Sam collapsed back against the rough wall.

The Rebel was bleeding again, and she felt a twinge of guilt. Unwarranted, Sam reminded herself. She should be thanking God things weren’t the other way around. She imagined the stranger would most likely have left her and Will bleeding in the dust. But that conclusion didn’t stop her from going back to the house for some clean linens.

Thanks to the bushwhacker’s friends and their penchant for trampling clean wash, Samantha had to strip sheets off her bed to use for bandages.

“Serve you right if I just let you bleed to death,” she mumbled, heading back to the barn. Will had put clean straw in the stall and together they spread out a blanket she brought. Then they maneuvered the wounded man onto it.

“We’re going to have to get his jacket and shirt off so I can tend to his wound.” Easier said than done, Samantha thought a quarter hour later as she and Will struggled with the sleeves. She finally sent Will to fetch the shears.

Cutting the hated gray uniform gave Samantha more satisfaction than she cared to admit. But slicing away the uniform didn’t change anything—there was still the raised CSA on his belt buckle.

Besides, Samantha was too busy staring at the gaping hole in his upper left chest. She pressed a wad of linen against it and pushed. Blood seeped through the cloth and onto her fingers. But she kept up the pressure and in a few minutes it slowed. Motioning for Will to take her place, Sam wrapped a torn strip of sheeting around his arm and body, then stood.

“Is that it?” Will looked up at her his eyes questioning.

“I don’t know what else to do.”

“But he doesn’t look good.”

“Well, he’s been shot, Will.” Samantha softened her tone when she saw her brother’s expression. She’d become hard, and it wasn’t good for that to rub off on Will. Besides he was right, the Rebel didn’t look good at all. He’d gone pale beneath his sun-bronzed skin. “Why don’t you check his saddle for a blanket?” She’d already sacrificed enough of their bedding for this man. “I’ll try to get him to drink a little water.”

But he couldn’t drink.

As much as Samantha tried, the water simply rolled from his mouth, and she finally gave up. Perhaps letting him sleep was best. Will came back, leaving the door open enough for Samantha to see the dust motes dancing in the slice of sunshine. He carried a rolled blanket in one hand, and had saddlebags thrown over his shoulder.

Samantha covered the stranger, and tossed the saddlebags in the corner. “Come on,” she urged when Will stood staring down at the man. “We’ve got lots to do.” Too much to worry about one Confederate soldier, she thought, even if he hadn’t been bent on hurting them.

When she stepped into the brightness and saw again the destruction done to their small farm, she pushed any thought of compassion for the man in the barn from her mind. Or she would have if Will had let her.

But he was full of questions, and her inability to answer a one of them didn’t stop him from asking. While they hauled water from the stream behind the house, he wondered aloud where the stranger came from.

“I don’t know,” Samantha answered. “Probably someone from Missouri back from the war and too wild to pass up mischief. Hand me that bucket, Will.”

Will watched his sister bend, scooping the water into the wooden-slatted pail. “He doesn’t look like them other ones.”

“Those other ones,” Samantha corrected automatically, then wondered why she bothered. It wasn’t as if her schoolteacher mother, or minister father, would know how Will talked. Or anyone else for that matter. Too many things had changed for her to worry about Will’s speech, but she continued to correct—out of habit? “What are you talking about, Will?” Samantha asked when she realized what her brother had said rather than how he’d said it.

“The stranger.” They trod the path to the house, stepping on some wild mint and releasing the pungent scent into the air. “He seems different from the others.”

“Well, he’s not.” Maybe she’d thought the same thing when she’d looked into his eyes, but Will hadn’t seen that. Besides, Samantha wasn’t certain now it wasn’t a trick of the light. And she didn’t want Will making this man into some kind of hero or something. “He’s like all the others... mean and spiteful. And don’t you forget it!”

“I’m sorry, Sam. I didn’t mean nothing.”

“Anything. It’s all right. Oh, would you look at this mess.” They emptied the water into the wash pail and Samantha trudged through the downed sheets, picking them up, shaking off what muck she could, then sloshing them into the water. “We’re going to have to let them soak,” she sighed, shaving off slivers of lye soap. They were not just soiled, but torn, and Samantha mentally tallied how many evenings’ work it would take to stitch them back to the way they were two hours ago. That time would cost her money. Money she could have made sewing for one of the ladies in town.

The garden wasn’t a complete loss, though it took the rest of the afternoon to restore it as best they could. By the time the sun dipped in the western sky amid a blaze of orange and red, Samantha’s back felt ready to break. She stood between the rows of pumpkins and leaned back, fighting tears that stung her eyes.

“That’s about all we can do for today,” she said, nudging Will as he patted dirt around some squash roots. “Let’s get washed up and eat supper.”

She wanted a bath more than anything, but thoughts of her aching muscles hauling more water, and work yet to do tonight, made Samantha settle for the wash bowl in her room.

Uncovering cornbread and cold stewed apples, Samantha hoped Will wouldn’t complain about their simple meal. But she was just too tired, and too emotionally drained, to cook a meal.