Love's Rescue (37 page)

Jess led the mustang around. She looked once more at these people she had come to love, wondering when she would see them again. After her departure, she didn’t much expect she’d be welcomed back.

Her eyes touched on Taggart and Reese. Beside Reese stood Seth, who could neither read nor write, yet who sent frequent letters home. Next to him was Diaz, with his love for horses. There was little Two Hands, who appeared uncertain but brave. Beside him stood Lone Wolf, holding his newborn son.

They were tough, rugged men who carved toy animals for Indian children, loaned a frayed woolen scarf to a hapless bookkeeper, and helped a couple of women hang a clothesline. They were men who found pleasure in a good game of cards, who risked their lives to look after some cows, and who had inspired and captured her heart.

Standing Bear had been listening nearby. Now the gray-haired man walked up to Jess and laid an ancient hand on her shoulder.

“‘Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends,’” he quoted John 15:13 with a gentle smile. “I see you have this great love for your brother. I will pray that the Good Spirit Father keeps you safe on your journey, friend of Red Deer.”

Jess lifted her eyes to his wrinkled face. “Thank you.”

She turned and pulled at the reins, and the horse followed her. The ranch hands slowly parted, making a path for her. She had nearly reached the edge of the crowd when Ho Chen stepped in front of her. Jess smiled, glad for this man who had brought so much joy and wisdom to her life. When he didn’t move aside, she looked at him wonderingly.

“What is it?”

Ho Chen bowed slightly. “You will see.”

Jess wasn’t certain what he meant, but he said nothing more. She led the horse on.

“Reese?” Jake’s deep voice broke the silence behind her. “Go saddle the roan for me.”

Jess’s feet stilled, her rigid back to the men. She drew a few shaky breaths, afraid to hope what Jake had meant by that.

“I’ll do it, boss,” Reese said. “If it’s all the same to you, I’ll be going on the gray.”

Jess spun.

“I will ride the gray, cabrito,” Diaz told Reese. “You take the buckskin, and don’ whine none. We keep la mariposa waiting.” He winked at Jess and followed the boy into the stable.

Jess stared at Jake in amazement. He held her gaze boldly.

Taggart tugged the waistband of his trousers more securely over his paunch. “Why are ye surprised? Ye are part of this ranch, and ranch folk do for one another, just as ye have done for us since ye came here. Ye should know by now it’s our way. Maybe it is how the good Lord meant for us to be.”

“But—”

Taggart stepped closer. “We are not at war in this place, but that’s not saying we don’t sympathize plenty with those who are.” With that declaration, he huffed after the others.

Jess’s small smile spread larger as the men hurried to ready mounts for the journey east.

Ho Chen remained just as he had been, except that now a mild, enigmatic grin curved on his mouth. Jake was going with her, and Ho Chen had known that he would.

Jess shared his smile. Her heart soared.

Jake walked up beside her, lifting his eyebrows. “Olivia wasn’t nearly this much trouble.”

Jess laughed out loud. “Neither is a cattle stampede.”

Jake smiled at that. “The boys and I need to get some things together.”

Within five minutes, Jake returned from the house. Their three other companions hurried over from the bunkhouse by way of Ho Chen’s kitchen. They added guns, clothes, bedrolls, and provisions to their saddles.

Diaz, Taggart, and Reese mounted up, and with the freedom of britches, Jess easily gained her saddle. Jake turned to the others. He shook hands with several of them, then clasped wrists with Lone Wolf.

“I will watch after your ranch, as always,” Lone Wolf said. “The work will be good.”

Jake considered this, then nodded. “Doyle will be your right hand, if you have a need.” He thought a moment. “Sell the mustang stallions. Breed the mares with the Morgans, come March. After roundup, deliver the beeves we’re contracted for. The contracts are in my desk. Sell all but a hundred of the rest.” He smiled at Jess. “We’re going to turn this place into a horse ranch next year.”

While the two clasped wrists again, Jess nudged her horse over to Doyle. She reached her gloved hand toward him.

For a moment, Doyle ignored her hand as he met her gaze. Then slowly, he lifted his hand and shook hers. “You keep yourself safe, Jess. This ranch needs you.”

Seeing a mixture of acceptance and understanding reflected in the faces of the others, Jess smiled tremulously at Doyle. She had mistaken their sharp attention for anger. She guided her horse to join the others, her thoughts turning to another matter. “I’m not certain you should come,” she told Jake, meaning it. “You’re needed here.”

His mouth quirked. “Well, ma’am, I’m not asking your permission.”

Jess rolled her eyes. His amusement was beyond her. “Don’t you see that you could lose everything?”

He sobered. “How can I lose everything if I still have you? I love you, Jess. Let’s go get your brother.”

Taggart’s voice boomed out. “Which way do we point the beasts?”

Jake met Jess’s frown with a calm smile. “To Chicago.”

Reese spoke up. “Where are we gonna stay for the winter, boss?”

“My pa’s farm is in Illinois. We’ll stay there.”

Diaz drew her gaze. “Your brother waits, mariposa.”

Exasperated from her own conflicting emotions, Jess put a fist on her hip and glared at him. “What does that word mean, anyway, Diaz?”

Taking no offense at her tone, the Spaniard answered gently. “Mariposa, señorita, means ‘butterfly.’”

Butterfly.

Impatient for the adventure to begin, Taggart and Reese whipped their horses into a run, and Diaz took off behind them.

Jake lifted his hat to his men, then set it back on his head.

Side by side, Jake and Jess kicked their horses into a gallop, leaving the ranch in many capable hands. They headed east toward Chicago—and Ambrose.

The afternoon sun was at their backs when the prairie ended at the outskirts of Chicago. Jess sighed as she counted the days since she had stood in the front room of Hale Imports with Ambrose’s letter in her hand. Twenty-six days. Twenty-six days since her world had fallen out from under her. Ambrose was brought back, Red Deer taken.

The journey over the Rockies and across the Plains had been longer and harder than she could have imagined, and yet she had seen some indescribably beautiful country. Like the Pony Express riders, they had switched mounts as often as possible. Nearly all the ranch owners in the western territories had honorably refused additional coin for taking perfectly good mounts in trade. It must be a cattlemen’s code, she mused, and Jake had been no different. From the first time that Jake pulled out a heavy pouch of coins, Jess had insisted she pay for their expenses. Jake hadn’t argued with her, but neither had he taken her money. Each time he returned to camp with supplies, she asked him to name an amount, but he waved her question away, telling her they’d figure it out some other time.

Now Jess was speechless as she gazed at the crowds and the maze of mud-hole streets. As they neared Lake Michigan, entire city blocks of buildings, as well as individual businesses, stood high on thousands of scissors jacks five feet or more above the ground. Even on horseback, she could see straight under them. Stairs led up to the businesses overhead, and customers came and went as if all cities hovered in the air. Beyond, the land flowed virtually straight out to the lake, explaining the necessity of raising the low-lying city to a higher grade. Dozens of huge wagons rolled by, hauling ponderous loads of dirt that were undoubtedly destined to fill in space beneath one of the raised buildings. Above the steady rumble of city noise, a train whistle screeched. The air was ripe with the stench of raw fish. They dismounted in front of a hotel, the entrance of which was at the top of a stairway, above their heads.

Though Jess wanted nothing more than to continue on to where Ambrose was being held, Jake checked her into a room, adhering to the plan they had devised. There, she made wise use of her time, bathing and then trying her hair this way and that until she was satisfied that she looked the part she would need to play. Jake returned with a blue and white striped taffeta day dress and all its accoutrements, which he had purchased for Jess, surprising her with his eye for fashion.

But then, she reminded herself, the man paid attention.

Jake also told her that Tom Rawlins had left a message at the telegraph office in response to the wire Jake had sent him from Fort Laramie. Tom had successfully obtained permission on their behalf, authorizing their visit with the Confederate prisoner Ambrose Hale at Camp Douglas.

After three long years of being apart from her brother, Jess would see him tomorrow—if he was still alive.

For the remainder of the evening, Jake, Diaz, Taggart, and Reese spread out over the city, visiting taverns and asking idle questions over games of cards.

When they gathered in Jake’s room late that night, they had learned plenty about the city—and unfortunate details about Camp Douglas prison.

“All of you, stop coddling me. What else did you hear?” Jess demanded, casting a worried glance at the bandaged knife wound on Reese’s arm. “Jake, you wouldn’t want me to keep anything from you. Don’t you keep anything from me.”

Jake leaned an elbow on the small, serviceable desk he sat beside and rubbed his eyes. “You’re right, Jess. No secrets.” He nodded his approval for his men to tell all.

Jess turned to Reese, who was fidgeting beside her on the couch. “You first.”

“Well, uh, Miss Jess, ma’am? Folks around here don’t dislike Southerners. They hate us. More than I’ve ever known anybody to hate anything. I’m not even from what most folks consider the South. I’m from Missouri.” He looked to Jake, reluctant to continue.

“Go on,” Jess ordered.

“I…I think if the boss hadn’t stopped those men, I’d have been a goner. They didn’t just see me as an enemy. The man with the knife said my kind had betrayed everything our fathers and forefathers had lived for and fought for since they first arrived on this continent. He said secessionists were traitors.”

Jess eyed Diaz and Taggart, who stood near Jake. “What else?”

Diaz hadn’t budged, and his arms were crossed angrily. “The colonel of Camp Douglas is a bad hombre named De Land. One barkeeper said De Land was held in a prisoner of war camp in the South, maybe treated badly. Now he thinks up ways to torture the prisoners. He had his soldiers raise a level two-by-four high off the ground, and he makes men sit on the narrow edge with bags of sand tied to their ankles for hours—until they pass out from pain. Many of the men’s feet break and they are crippled. They call it ‘the mule.’”

Jess’s head felt sickeningly light. She could taste bile.

“Ye wouldn’t believe this man, De Land, I’m telling ye,” Taggart agreed. “His men beat prisoners’ naked backs with sticks or shoot them for sport, and he promotes them. He starves the Confederates, as well, and diseases spread, like dysentery and typhoid and smallpox. On Sundays, people from town ride the streetcar to a platform near the camp and pay ten cents to see the prisoners. I heard they see dead men carried out nearly one an hour. Reese is right. Since the prison guards see the Confederates as traitors, they feel justified in brutalizing them and letting them die.”

Jess slumped against the back of the sofa, her arms limp. Her face felt feverish, and the room suddenly grew dark. The odd sound filling her ears was like bubbles breaking in a hundred glasses of champagne. “How many have died?”

“It’s hard to say,” Taggart’s voice responded, sounding distant. “I thought it wise to speak to a grave digger to find out all I could, and he knows a great deal, though I wouldn’t say he’s always honest in business. He said the camp stopped keeping a record of the dead months ago, and universities that teach doctorin’ pay him to dig up corpses for them to study. When there are too many to bury, he throws the bodies into the lake out there. They sometimes wash up on shore. I asked him to guess, and he said between two and three thousand.”

Jess felt herself being pulled gently against a solid chest. “That may be,” Jake’s voice said above her, “but some guards are corrupt and are known to accept payoffs. A lot of men have escaped.”

With a weak hand, Jess squeezed his arm. “Then the men are found, right?”

“Not all of them.”

“But some are found and taken back,” she probed, inwardly begging him to disagree with her.

“Yeah, some are taken back.”

***

Jess trembled as she clipped sapphire earrings to her lobes. She stepped back to assess her overall appearance in the mirror. The blue and white gown hinted at wealth; the wide-brimmed straw hat and the cascade of curls falling to her waist lent her a touch of youthful innocence.

When Jake knocked on her door moments later, she opened it to see the striking figure of a dark-suited businessman who had to duck his head to step through the door. There was nothing Jess could do to mask her admiration of Jake Bennett. She took in his appearance with astonishment, not bothering to shut her mouth. Her eyes flitted from his polished black boots to the gray felt hat pulled low over his eyes.

“That should do,” she managed. Flustered for the first time since she’d met him, Jess found her white gloves and tugged them on.

“The clothes…they won’t work well on the ranch,” Jake reminded her.

Jess preceded him out of the room, her cheeks warm. “I know. I just like seeing you this way for once.”

Jake gazed down at her. “I know just what you mean.”

As they descended the stairs toward the main floor, her fingers played with the folds of her skirt, clenching and smoothing them with her hand.

“If I’d known you wanted wrinkles in your dress,” Jake teased, “I wouldn’t have asked the dressmaker to press it.”

Feeling her panic rise, Jess bit the inside of her cheek. Hard. “Either I’m going to see my brother today or I’m going to learn that he’s dead.”