Jessie's War (Civil War Steam) (22 page)

Brushing her braid over her
shoulder, he slid his hands down her arms. He leaned in, his lips feathering
over the skin of her neck, as lust screamed through his veins like the wail of
air raid sirens. “Yeah, well, I’ve always been good with my hands.”

And then he kissed her.

It was just a simple kiss,
placed where her shoulders met her neck. His tongue snaked out to taste the
heat of her skin, the smallest of tastes.

She exploded on his tongue,
and he realized that if he didn’t pull away, and put some distance between
them, he wouldn’t stop. Wouldn’t be able
to
stop.

She wasn’t ready for that.
Maybe she never would be.

The thought sobered him,
cooling the lust raging just below the surface of his skin. He dropped his
hands, and lay back down among the blankets. Rolled to his side, his back to
her, and covered himself with his duster and a blanket.

“Go to sleep, Jess.” He felt
her eyes on his back for a long time.

Eventually, she lay down next
to him and covered herself, and after a time, her ragged respirations evened
out. And though he intended to keep watch over her through the night, not long
after, he drifted off to sleep.

Snow,
heavy with soot, drifted on a soft wind, its gentleness incongruous with the
brutality around him.

He
lay on his stomach in the snow, his head aching and his body bruised. Laughter
and angry taunts surrounded him, and he fought against the lethargy of his
limbs, the oppressive weight of…. something… in his chest. Wanted to stand up
and fight, and wasn’t able to.

His
body felt wrong, like it wasn’t his to control.

His
back hurt, and a splash of crimson stained the nearby earth. A blood-covered
rock lay not far away. His clothes were torn, his coat was gone. Exposed and
beaten, he could scarcely breathe from the weight of soot in his lungs, from
the pain in his chest that acted like an anchor, weighing him down.

He
reached up to touch his scalp, and his fingers came away sticky. Crimson blood
stained them, and he struggled against the apathy strangling him as surely as a
noose.

Then
he flinched, for the bloodstained fingers were not his own.

Delicate
fingers despite the calluses, with long, graceful nails. Golden skin. A small,
silver ring on the fourth finger, worn like a wedding band.

His
ring. Her fingers.

Jessie.
He was inside
her.

The
men surrounding him—her? Them?—laughed. They jeered and they kicked
her in the ribs, and Luke willed her to fight, wrestled with the weight of her
limbs to make her rise. And she wouldn’t. Instead, he was encased in darkness
as she closed her eyes and waited.

Fight, Jessie. Open your eyes
and fight, dammit!

Someone
grabbed him roughly by the shoulders and flipped him over, his fingers digging
into Jessie’s flesh. She opened a single eye, and Luke saw a man he had once
thought of as his friend bring out a writhing bag.

Amidst
the jeers, the contents of the bag were dumped onto his chest.

Rattlers.

His
bellow of rage came out as little more than a desperate, feminine whimper.

Beneath
the sound of Jessie’s cries and the taunts, the low music of a chant reached
his ears. A chill settled over his bones, as memories of the Shaeffer mine
flooded him. He only saw what she did—dead winter grass, sagebrush,
angry, hate-filled sneers—but something moved in the periphery, and Luke
sensed that
something
was infinitely more dangerous than snakes.

Luke
wanted to focus on that, but couldn’t.

The
vipers writhed on his chest, and he fought to remain still. The song built
inside of him, outside of him, and he even heard drums as Jessie’s ancestors
sang her home.

Fight, Jessie. Fight them.
Stay.

Impotent
rage spiraled through him.

She
had known her ancestors had come to take her to the other side with them. They
were everywhere: in the brush of wind against her cheek, in the shadow of the
falling snow.

She
welcomed their peace, willing herself to be quiet and still. Willed herself to
become one with them and with the snakes writhing on her chest. The chants and
the rattles mixed together, the song steadily building until he heard nothing
else.

A
shot rang out, and she flinched as he never would have. The song’s hold on the
snake broke, and the rattler moved to strike.

He
opened his mouth to shout, and what came out was a single note from a song he’d
never heard. It terrified him.

Yet
Jessie relaxed.

Mouth
open, the rattler dropped mid strike, its lifeless jaws open and dripping with
venom. The other vipers lay dead on his chest. Scrambling into a sitting
position, trembling hands flung them away, and the men surrounding him backed
away from the corpses. One dropped to his knees as Jessie gained her feet,
dizzy and unsteady. Without mercy, she opened her mouth to begin again.

That’s right, fight them,
Jess.

“The
song of death is not for you,” her grandfather’s voice whispered, and his
vision tunneled to little more than a pinpoint of light in the middle of a sea
of infinite darkness.

Another
gunshot rang out, and all went dark.

Luke startled awake, and it
took him several beats to realize where he was, and with whom. Anger and fear
mingled beneath his ribs, his heart hammering.

Beside him, Jessie cried out
and sat up, her unseeing eyes wild and terrorized.

She trembled as he gathered
her into his arms.

“Hey.” He whispered into her
hair. “Shh. It’s all right. You’re safe now.”

Her tears stung his skin as
she buried her face in his chest. She wrapped her hands around his midsection,
her palms pressed flat against his back, and a different pain pierced his
chest. Not grief. Not the hopelessness he’d grown accustomed to. Something…
else.

“What was it, sweet?” he
whispered.

Her cheek was warm against
his chest. “Bear Creek,” she choked out.

Damn
sheriff
. If he ever got
the chance, he’d kill every man there that day. They deserved to die for what
they’d done to her. And now, he knew exactly who they were.

“Want to talk about it?”

“No,” she whispered.

He could have pressed her,
but he didn’t.

“You’re okay. Bad dream, is
all.” Her skin burned like ice where it touched him. “You’re shaking.”

She burrowed into his arms
and nodded into his chest. “I’m cold.”

He rubbed tiny circles
against the small of her back and held her until the tremors subsided. It felt
so right to hold her in his arms. He couldn’t take away her pain. He wished the
comfort he did offer would be enough, and suspected it wouldn’t.

For a long time he held her,
for it was the only thing he could offer her. “Better?” he asked finally.

She squeezed him for just a
moment before she nodded.

He stroked her back once
more, and released her. Immediately, he wanted her back. “We should get some
sleep.”

She stared at her hands.

“What do you need, Jess?”

Pushing a stray lock of hair
out of her eyes, she hesitated. “Do you think you could hold me for a little
while? Just until I go to sleep?”

He heard trepidation in her
words. And hope.

Maybe it didn’t matter that
he’d been gone so long.

Maybe she could find it in
her to forgive him.

Maybe then he could forgive
himself.

Turning back his duster and
the blankets he’d used to cover himself, he invited her into the space of his
arms, and she accepted.

Her head on his chest, she
settled next to him, and she wrapped her arm around him and held him tight.

He pulled the blankets up
around her shoulders and kissed her hair. Inhaled the scent of
her—juniper and sage, winter storms and woman.

“It will be all right,” he
murmured.

Because, with the last beat
of his heart, he would make damn sure no one ever hurt her again.

He lay awake for a long time,
considering what, precisely, his unspoken promise actually meant.

* * * *

The next morning, Jessie watched Luke as he packed up the
horses for the ride into Fort Bastion. The women had given her a change of
clothing, a supply of blankets, and had packed a meal of dried meat for the
journey.

She was touched by their generosity. Her people lived
sparsely. By her father’s standards, they lived in poverty, scraping by on
whatever the barren land would yield. They lived in temporary shelters made of
wood they had gathered, and the more elaborate ones were covered with antelope
or deer hide. They ate what they hunted or fished for or gathered, and if
nothing could be found, they ate nothing. They fought in skirmishes with white
men who sought to take their land or their women, despite the treaty granting
them both territory and autonomy.

But for all of that, they seemed happy. They were far
happier than Jessie had been anyway, living in her father’s house.

Taba shoved her nose into Jessie’s neck, and she stroked the
Appaloosa.

She wasn’t quite prepared to say goodbye to the horse, but
knew she couldn’t take her. Taba was tired from two hard days of riding. And
she’d be safe here. The Ewepu Tunekwuhudu would take care of her.

Didn’t mean that Jessie hated leaving her any less.

“Jessie,” said a voice from behind her.

She turned. “Cheveyo.”

His expression gave her the impression he was sad. It was in
his eyes, inky and inscrutable, and the hardened slant of his mouth. It was in
his stance, the way he braced his legs apart, his hands on his hips, and the
way he shifted his weight as if nervous.

But that wasn’t possible—Jessie had never known him to
be nervous. Cheveyo’s wild heart didn’t know fear. Never had.

He put a hand on her shoulder. “It’s been good to see you
again, cousin.”

She studied the planes of his face, reached up and covered
his hand with hers, and gave it a companionable pat. “You too, brother.”

He was quiet for a few moments. Then he reached into the
pouch at his waist and pulled out a golden feather that shimmered in the sun.

She extended her hand and was startled by how delicate and
light it was. It looked solid, but felt ephemeral and holy.

He took the feather from her and tied it around her neck by
a thick leather strap that seemed more substantial than the item itself. “Grandfather
wanted me to give this to you before you left. He says you’ll need it.”

She traced the edges with the tip of her finger. It looked
like a hawk’s feather that had been dipped in gold, every detail perfectly
etched. “It’s beautiful.”

Cheveyo stared out at the barren, snow-covered mountains
behind her head for a long time. “This will grant you safe passage through
hostile territory. Those you encounter will recognize Grandfather’s mark.
Perhaps it will protect you when your white man can’t.”

“I wish you’d stop calling him that. He has a name.”

Cheveyo smiled. “I know he does. I even know what it is.” He
put his hands on her shoulders. “He’s not a bad man, actually. I could like
him.”

“I know he’s not. I think I like him too.” She glanced over
to where Luke was bent over readying the horses, and her stomach
knotted—and that was just from watching him with a
horse.
If she thought about what he could do with his hands…

Cheveyo laughed, but sadness shifted in the murky depths of
his eyes. “That’s a swift change of heart. Just yesterday you said you hated
him.”

“Yeah, well. You know how these things go.”

“Actually, I don’t,” he responded without bitterness. “I’m
glad you’re letting go of your anger.” He smiled.

For the first time, she believed she had her childhood
playmate back.

She paused, thinking of her dream the night before. The
terror and the pain. The jeers and the laughter and the taunts, which at the
time had somehow seemed worse than the beating. These people she’d grown up
with, turning on her. Luke had always been there before. Things had gotten
steadily worse for her after Luke and Gideon had left, and she suspected she’d
never appreciated how much Luke had done to protect her until after he was
gone.

After Bear Creek, things had never been worse, and he hadn’t
come to save her. She’d relived the nightmare of those days night after night.

For years, she’d been angry because she’d been so alone.
Angry with her father, who was impotent with grief. Angry with Luke, for dying
on her. Angry with her tribe, for not protecting her when they could have, and
should have.