Patricia Hagan (18 page)

She shrugged. “It’s not important. I’m sure you’ll do a good job, Neil.” She gave him a sincere smile of appreciation.

Neil looked at her thoughtfully, arguing with himself. He should mind his own business, he told himself. Maybe he was just jealous, but damn it… “I can’t help but be curious, Holly. You and the colonel don’t seem to bring out the best in each other. I fought with him in the war, and we were together for almost four years. I know him, and I sense that something happened between you two that caused you to be enemies. Am I right? It’s so strange.” She kept her head lowered in what she hoped was a dignified, but resentful, silence. “I’m sorry,” he said finally. “It’s just that, he’s a fine man if you’d give him a chance. He makes a hell of a friend.”

Holly smiled coolly. “It isn’t important that we be friends, Neil. Please don’t concern yourself.”

Oh, Lord, he felt like a tool. “Okay, I’m sorry.” He plunged on. “I’d like to see you, Holly, even think about courting you later on. And, well, I wasn’t sure if, you know, if you and Colter might be seeing each other if you get things smoothed out.”

She stood. “I think we both have things to do, Neil,” she said pointedly.

He nodded and left the cabin. Holly hurriedly took a sponge bath from the water basin, then dressed in a long beige cotton skirt and a green muslin blouse. Brushing her hair, she pulled it into a neat bun at the nape of her neck. There would be time later for a proper bath and shampoo at Magnolia Hall.

Roger was waiting for her outside. He’d saddled her horse, and he helped her mount. They rode away, leaving Captain Davis and his men to search for whatever clues the Night Hawks might have left behind.

They did not see Colonel Colter come out of the woods as soon as they left…

Riding along the riverbank, Roger offered, “I can see why you love it here.”

It was so peaceful. Like the old days, riding with Grandpa. “It’s so beautiful…and mysterious,” Holly said. “The old-timers say the men of the river country had to be tough and tricky to survive. Grandpa used to say a man who made his living on the river had to be part horse, part alligator, with touches of snapping turtle and wildcat.”

Roger laughed heartily. “All that? And you think you can survive? A lovely fluff of a girl like you?”

She knew he wasn’t making fun of her. “Grandpa said he raised me to be what the old-timers call a ‘hoss,’ so I don’t worry about myself.”

“A
‘horse’
?”

“Not a ‘horse,’ Roger,” she laughed. “A ‘hoss,’ pronounced just like I said it. That’s a man who’s known for strength and courage. You have to be strong to live here. It’s big-fish-eat-little-fish.”

He smiled. She was warming to him. Good. Maybe his whole scheme was going to work out sooner than he’d thought. Fine, because time was precious. “It doesn’t sound very pleasant,” he said.

She ignored his remark, and went on wistfully, almost reverently, “There’s a code of honor here, though. Like, when the floods come. A fisherman will choose to die of hunger rather than eat fish trapped in a half-submerged shed. It wouldn’t be fair to eat the fish, because the fish are fighting for their lives, same as they are.”

Roger sniffed. “Ridiculous. Honor for fish? Really, Holly, people around here are brought up on nonsense.”

He did not see the cryptic look she gave him. It was times like this, Holly realized, when the nagging suspicion returned. Something told her that Roger Bonham was a very complicated person…and not to be trusted. There was just something, something she couldn’t define. Something dictated she be wary.

“Grandpa said the river was almost holy, that he got his strength from it, so it must have given him life. He wanted to be buried in it, but Mother wouldn’t hear of such a thing, so she had him put in the family cemetery on our land…now your father’s land,” she added tightly. “He didn’t tear it up, did he?”

“Oh, of course not, Holly,” he said airily. “Father may be land-hungry and power-hungry, and I may get quite disgusted with him from time to time, but he’s not the sort to destroy cemeteries.” He looked at her and laughed condescendingly.

Holly lapsed into silence, the peaceful moment between them thoroughly shattered by her doubts. He was polite enough, and he seemed to care for her, but each time she tried to talk to him, she felt further and further away from him. It seemed he was making fun of her.

They rounded another sweeping curve of the great river, and Holly rose higher in the saddle so as to see better. The magnificent view never failed to make her heart beat faster.

The house, two stories tall, stood high on the hill, a lush carpet of grass rolling toward them. A low stone wall was set at the base of the hill. There was a wide veranda, and the view from the house was spectacular, sweeping for a mile around and more. The windows were in sets, two large sets on the main floor, with four smaller, narrower windows just above. The second-floor windows jutted out to give the appearance of towers.

Roger’s face twisted in a sarcastic grin. “Father said he’s always wanted to have a house like this for the woman who could make him happy.”

Something struck Holly then. Hadn’t Jarvis built a dream house for Roger’s mother? Hadn’t he been happy with her? But Roger was talking and she hardly felt she could ask him.

“He’s had to get the grounds ready in time for the wedding, and it’s still not all done. In the spring, he’s going to have the grass replanted in different shades of green, to look like a checkerboard! There’ll be full-time gardeners tending the rose gardens, a large pond for goldfish, and he plans on gardenias and jasmine. Father said he wanted every breath your mother breathes to be sweet,” he added with contempt. Did he hate his father for showing off? But Roger was quite a dandy himself, after all.

Holly was impressed with what Jarvis had accomplished. And he was providing employment for lots of people. “It’s certainly more lavish than our old house. Frankly, I’d be very resentful if it weren’t my mother living there.”

Roger sniffed. He rambled on about the house. The upstairs had six large bedrooms, each with a private bath and dressing room. All flanked an upper gallery. Claudia’s suite was to the rear, for a view of the gardens, and Jarvis’s was beside hers, to the front. “Yours and mine are on the opposite side, you know,” Roger drawled.

“Mine?” Holly said. “I won’t be living there. I have a home.”

He reached over to pat her hand. “Nothing would please me more than to have you move here so we could be together more often. After last night,” he grimaced, “I’ll be worried sick about you out there in the swamps by yourself.”

“I’ll be fine. As for your wanting us to be together more often,” she paused, trying so hard not to offend him, “I don’t want us to court, Roger, and I’m sorry if you’ve gotten the wrong impression.”

He stiffened, staring straight ahead. “Your mother didn’t feel she was too good for a Yankee. What makes you think you are?”

Holly gasped, “Roger! That’s not the point!”

“Yes, it is,” he whipped about to glare at her. “Everyone knows how stubborn you are, not caring that you worry the hell out of
everybody by insisting on living in the swamps. Don’t you think the army has better things to do than keep an eye on you? Doesn’t it bother you to cause so much trouble?”

Holly could not believe this. Always, Roger had been polite, kind. And here he was, railing at her as though he had only hatred for her. He was suddenly a stranger, and suddenly she knew what it was about him that caused her to be so apprehensive. He was a stranger. She never knew when he was being his true self and when he was acting.

“I offered to buy your land,” he went on in a voice thick with resentment. “You don’t have to sell to my father. I’ll take it off your hands, give you a fair price, and you can move here. Or move to town. Or go to New Orleans. Go anywhere you want to go.”

“I have to keep that land. I made a promise, and I intend to keep it, no matter what.”

“Then keep the damn, worthless land,” Roger cried furiously. “Just get off of it. Move. Quit worrying your mother and everybody else. I’ll give you money to live on. So will my father. Just get out, Holly. Stop being such a problem.”

She bit back tears of humiliation. She dug her heels into her horse’s flanks and rode ahead.

Roger viciously popped his riding crop over his horse, taking him into a fast gallop. As he flashed past her, he yelled, “Just go your own way, Holly. I’ve no time for a pigheaded woman!”

She slowed down, watching him race ahead. Why had he reacted so violently? Whatever was the matter with him? Good Lord, he was a complex person—and she surely wanted nothing more to do with him if she could possibly avoid it.

A cloud passed and the dazzling sun disappeared as she reached the long entrance path to her mother’s home.

Chapter Fifteen

Roger Bonham was breathing almost as heavily as his horse as he rode into his father’s new stable. He was furious with himself. Why had he lost control in front of Holly?

Never, he told himself as he leaped from the horse, had he encountered a woman so damnably stubborn. What was it going to take to get her off that goddamn land? Already he was being forced to slip out there and dig up a little of the gold once in a while, to give to his men. He thanked heaven for the rough terrain. The digging left no scars. His men were impatient. They wanted their full shares so they could be on their way. They were thoroughly discontented with being part of the Night Hawks, and they all wanted out. He had to get Holly out of there fast, at least long enough to make a massive dig and be done with it. Bringing out a million dollars in gold bars a few at a time might take a hundred years.

He glanced about in the shadows irritably. Where was that worthless Negro? The horse needed a rubdown, and Norman was probably coddling that wench of his. Hell, she’d been scared almost white. Why hadn’t Holly reacted the same way? She hadn’t acted frightened—just mad as hell. Why?

Something moved in the shadows. “Norman,” he yelled. “Take care of this horse. If you don’t start earning your keep around here, I’ll have my father run your sorry ass off this land.” At least he didn’t have to control himself in his father’s stables, thank heaven.

Barney Phillips stepped noiselessly out of a stall.

Roger nodded, unsurprised. “At least you showed up here. You did something like I told you to,” he said bitterly. “You idiots weren’t too effective last night. Holly wasn’t scared away. Just the wench—and she’s not who we’re after, you know,” he reminded him sarcastically.

Barney picked at his teeth with a chipped fingernail, studying Roger. “Seemed scared at the time, she did. Don’t know what else we could’a done except kill the nigger right in front of her, and you said not to kill nobody.”

“You fool!” Roger wondered for the hundredth time how he could have picked such ignorant people to work for him. Well, there hadn’t been a hell of a lot of time to be choosy. “Of course I don’t want anyone killed. Not unless it’s absolutely necessary. That will bring the law down on us, you moron. God, I wish we could get that gold so you and the rest of the idiots could get out of here.”

Barney snorted. “You don’t want that any more’n we do, Bonham. Don’t know of one of us that ain’t itchin’ to go home. ’Specially when you expect us to take orders from that shit-brain, Pollock,” he growled. Barney wasn’t too bright, but he knew when he was mad.

Roger sighed. He didn’t like Talton Pollock a bit better than his men did, but Pollock was the one who’d given him the idea of hiding the gold where it was. No one around Vicksburg knew, of course, that Pollock had been a traitor in the war, selling information to the Union. Roger, anxious to stay out of the fighting, had been only too happy to work for the government. His job had been seeing to it that spies and other undercover people got paid. That was how he’d met Pollock. Later, when he overheard Jarvis talking to that pompous general about allowing the gold to cross his property, he had seen a way at last to make a fortune and stop living off his father.

He’d realized he needed Pollock’s knowledge of the river and the local terrain, and, sure enough, Pollock had decided where the gold should be hidden. Choosing the Maxwell property, he’d cited easy access from the river, isolation, and the fact that the old man who lived there was often away for a couple of days at a time. Roger would have no problem getting title by paying the taxes, and there wouldn’t be anything the old man could do about it. The plan had been so simple.

“So what are we gonna do next?” Barney was riled. “How long can we keep ridin’ on her land in the middle of the night without one of us gettin’ killed? Look what happened to Wellman. That little gal knows how to shoot. You can’t tell me she couldn’t ’a killed him if she’d wanted to.”

“Wait a minute!” Roger cried, rubbing his hand across his forehead. “Where is Wellman? Still hiding out?”

Barney nodded. Wellman had no intention of leaving till he got his share of the gold. “He said you told him you’d bring his gold out so he could be on his way, and I don’t mind tellin’ you he’s gettin’ real pissed. Says he’s tired of sittin’ on his ass doin’ nothing while you’re draggin’ yours. Truth is,” he added in warning, “I’m gettin’ worried about him. You don’t do somethin’ soon to get him gone, he’s liable to go to the law.

“The other night me and a couple of the boys went to take him food and liquor, like we do every couple of days, and he said he had a good mind to just go get the gold himself, then turn you in to the law to take the heat off him while he hightails it outta here. He even asked if any of us would be interested in joinin’ him. Now I told you I was with you, Bonham, but I can’t speak for the others. They’re gettin’ restless and you better do somethin’.”