Simply Heaven (4 page)

The sun was a shapeless gold flame, toasting the land and parching the chaparral and mesquite that dared to sprout from the rocks and sand.

Since passing through San Antonio and heading farther west, Steve felt as though he were locked in wilderness and would never reach civilization again. The ground swells were long and so equal in height and similar in form that they reminded him of a tedious sea voyage he'd taken years back, when the ship had plowed along, hour after slow hour, without raising a single object to attract the eye.

Everything seemed to blend into the horizon in all directions, with nothing in between save an occasional barren hillock or dry gulch, starkly framed by the distant mountains.

He rode with a bandanna across his nose and the lower part of his face to keep the dust out of his throat.

He had traveled steadily since leaving Mobile, stopping only at night. During the day, he paused to water his horse while he ate a portion of his rations. Time was precious. It was going to be hard to decide when to give up and turn back if he could not find Ned's daughter. And if it came to that, he only hoped Ned would feel some peace to know he had tried his best.

He was alert for any hint of danger, because everyone he had talked to since crossing into Texas had said they lived in constant fear of an Indian attack. Nearly eight thousand soldiers were manning fifty-two forts on the western frontier, but even with all the reservations that had been established, it still wasn't enough to protect the settlers from the Indians, who were enraged over the white man's invasion of what they firmly believed was their land. Steve had not been too concerned till after he reached the other side of San Antonio. Now, alone in the wastelands, he could not help wishing he had a guide with him who would know where Indians were most likely to be and could spot signs he might not notice.

So, ever mindful of his surroundings, he wiled away the hours by ruminating on his own life.

He thought about the money Ned was leaving him and how it really made no difference, regardless of the amount. The fact was, the one thing Steve wanted Ned could not leave him—and that was having a real home. He'd felt that he did for the first time in his life when he accompanied Ned back to Halcyon, but with Ned gone it would seem like home no longer.

He supposed sooner or later he would have to move on, because he sure as hell didn't intend to hang around and take Lisbeth up on her offer. Maybe some men would leap at the chance, but not him. If not for that awkward situation, he might have considered staying on to tend the horses.

Ned sometimes nagged him to find a wife. Steve would laugh at the notion, not admitting he had no intentions of ever getting hitched. He just couldn't see himself falling in love with a woman and wasn't about to marry otherwise. Love hurt. And he had learned the only way to keep from being hurt was not to expect anything from a woman beyond the moment at hand. That way, he was spared disappointment.

His mother had died giving birth to him, and no one seemed sure who his father was. After all, a woman struggling to survive on the Philadelphia waterfront in 1830, as his mother had been forced to do, could hardly be concerned with the names of her customers.

His only known relative, an aunt, had taken him to raise, and when she died before his fourth birthday he was put in an orphanage. Bitterly, he remembered clinging to indifferent matrons' skirts, crying and begging for attention, only to be impatiently pushed away, sometimes even slapped and knocked to the floor. Then, when he was old enough, he was placed in homes to do chores, forced to work hard for long cruel hours and beaten if he dared to complain.

He had learned about sex from girls in the households where he lived. A sixteen-year-old had sneaked into his attic bed when he was twelve and was the first of too many to remember. But there had never been any tenderness, just pleasures of the flesh which became solace amidst the misery of his life.

As he matured, however, he dared to think there might be more to lovemaking than frenzied coupling in the dark, and stupidly fell in love. The girl had been many years older than he was. Never would he forget how cruelly she had laughed at him when, in the throes of passion, he had blurted out that he loved her. That was when he made up his mind never to expect more than fleeting physical pleasure. He made it good, and the girls—and, eventually, women—always came back for more.

When he was older, there were a few who hinted at marriage and all that went with it, but he was honest with them all, making it clear he was not interested in commitment.

In late afternoon on the third day out from San Antonio, Steve arrived at Fort Inge. Situated on a hill, it was planned around a spacious parade ground with officers' quarters lining one side and soldiers' barracks and stables on another. In the rear was the hospital, storehouses, and other support buildings necessary to an isolated post.

He stated his business to the cautious sentry on duty at the gate: He was looking for a man named Seth Greer who had once operated a trading post on the San Antonio trail but had not seen it along the way.

The sentry shook his head. "Sorry, I don't know anything about it. Never heard of anybody named Greer. I've only been here a few months, though. Somebody else might be able to help you." He waved another soldier over. "Take this man to the quartermaster's office."

As they crossed the parade ground, Steve instinctively glanced toward the stables. He made a mental note to stop by later, curious about the stock used by the army.

He saw some men lounging around outside wearing the familiar blue uniform of the cavalry, but there the resemblance to regular soldiers ended. Some of them had braids, a couple wore scalp locks, and a few had long hair streaming down their backs. They eyed him warily as he passed, dark eyes set in cinnamon faces. These, he knew, were Indians hired to scout for the army.

One of them caught his eye. He was smaller, appeared younger, and seemed to distance himself from the others. His hair was long but instead of the front part being pulled away from his forehead by a bandanna or leather thong, like the rest of the Indians, it tumbled to nearly conceal his eyes.

Steve also noticed how filthy the boy was. His face was covered with dirt, and the baggy uniform he wore was not particularly clean either.

The soldier escorting Steve saw him staring at the scouts and mistook his interest for aversion. "I don't like 'em either. Can't be trusted, none of 'em. They'd just as soon slit your throat as look at you. But the army says we need 'em to track down the rest of their kind."

"Indians betraying Indians," Steve murmured. "That's a sad paradox in a way."

The soldier glanced at him sharply. "You sound like an Indian lover, mister. Maybe that's 'cause you don't know what it's really like out here. It's hell, thanks to the red man, and the sooner we kill every one of them the better."

Steve responded quietly. "My feelings have nothing to do with being an Indian lover. I just find it pitiful that men are forced to turn against their own kind in order to survive. There has to be another way for everyone to live in peace."

The soldier softened a bit. "Yeah, I know what you mean. I don't like the killing either. Hell, I don't even like being a soldier. I thought I would. Thirteen dollars a month sounded good, along with clothes and shelter and food. But I've seen too many men die in this godforsaken place, and I'm not wanting to join them. I'm not like the scouts. They only want their pay and don't give a damn who gets killed so long as it's not them."

They reached the post quartermaster's office, where Steve met Captain Puckett.

"Have a seat, Maddox." The captain shook his hand. "Welcome. We don't get a lot of visitors in these parts. Where are you from and what brings you here?"

"I'm a horse trainer on a plantation in Alabama, just north of Mobile." He repeated what he had told the sentry, how he was looking for Seth Greer.

The captain nodded. "The trading post was maybe a mile or so away. It was owned by the government. The commander before me wanted it moved inside the fort for convenience and got permission to do it. Greer said he wouldn't operate it anymore and quit. That was over a year ago."

Steve felt a rush of excitement to have his first lead. "Do you have any idea where he went?"

"Sorry. That's all I know."

"Is there anybody here who would?"

"Maybe Sergeant Major Wacksmith. He's been here longer than anybody else. I saw him a little while ago, heading for the blacksmith with his horse."

Steve thanked him and quickly found his way to the shop, which was situated in a corner of the stables. He saw that the scouts were still watching him, along with the boy, who continued to stand apart from the others.

Sergeant Wacksmith was not in a good mood. A big barrel-chested man, he was wheezing and sweating in the late-afternoon heat as he attempted to shoe a horse. Bending over, holding the horse's hoof in one hand, he was struggling to hammer in the nails. He glanced up briefly at Steve before muttering, "What the hell do you want? Can't you see I'm busy?"

Steve noted the horse appeared uneasy. "You aren't a regular blacksmith, are you?"

"Damn right I'm not. We ain't got but one—Corporal Gooden—and he's down with a bad leg. Horse kicked him yesterday. My horse threw a shoe this morning, and there's nobody to fix it but me."

"Let me do it." Steve rolled up his sleeves.

Wacksmith was only too glad to let him, and gratitude quickly changed to admiration as he realized Steve knew what he was doing. "I can see that's not the first horse you've ever shod, mister."

Steve nodded. "The horse knows it too, which is more important. He's not going to stand still if he senses you're nervous, and that's when trouble starts."

Steve nailed the shoe in place, checked the others to make sure they were all right, then stood. "That does it. Now I'd like to talk to you, if you've got a minute."

Wacksmith laughed. "Better make it quick, or we'll have you in a uniform working here full-time, good as you are."

"Thanks, but I've
got
a job—trying to find a man I hope you know something about. His name is Seth Greer."

"Oh, I can help you there, all right. He used to run a trading post down the road. I knew him real good."

"Do you know where he went when it was closed down?"

"Why do you want to know?"

Steve knew if word got out he was searching for an heiress, Indian girls would come from all over claiming to be Raven. "All I can tell you is that I was hired to find him and his daughter, but I assure you I mean them no harm."

"Well, you won't find Seth. He's dead."

Steve was not surprised. He had figured that was the reason Ned's letters from Greer had stopped. "I'm sorry about that," he responded, "but I'd still like to hear anything you can tell me about him."

Wacksmith figured there was no harm in that. "We was real close, Seth and me. I was about the only soldier he took up with, being I'm older than most. Anyway, he didn't like men around his daughter. You probably already know she was a half-breed."

Steve nodded.

"Well, folks out here don't have no use for half-breeds at all. Breeds are misfits; neither whites nor Indians will accept them as a member of their race. Seth's wife was a Tonkawa. She died not long after he came here. I didn't know him then, but I can tell you he loved that squaw to a fault. Sometimes we'd share a bottle of whiskey, and he'd get to talking about her and start crying. Anyway, he was bound and determined to take care of his daughter—her name was Raven—and he knew some soldiers don't have no more respect for a breed girl than they do a whore. That's why he wouldn't move the trading post inside the fort. Said he'd rather take his chances with renegade Indians than soldiers creeping around at night."

"Do you know where he headed when he left?"

"Back to the reservation on the Sabine River, northeast of here, where he used to work. He was friends with some of the agents there and said he might try to hire on again, if he couldn't get another trading post to run."

Steve dared to hope out loud. "Then the girl is probably still on the reservation."

"Hard to say. A ranger passing through told me Seth had died, but he didn't know anything about the girl. She might have got married by now. Pretty as she was, she wouldn't have no trouble finding a husband to take care of her."

Steve hoped that was not the case. A husband would only complicate things.

"Wish I could tell you more."

"You've been a big help. At least I know where to start looking. All I need now is one of those scouts"—he nodded toward the Indians who had gathered in the doorway—"to make sure I don't get lost or stumble into the wrong place. I took the trail from Alabama to Texas along the Gulf, figuring it was safer once I got in rough territory."

"That's for sure, but now you got to go up through Bastro and Nacogdoches, and that's country you sure don't want to wander around in. You'll need a guide, all right, but don't expect the army to cooperate. We need all the scouts we got, what with Washington on our backs demanding we beef up patrols to protect the settlers."

Steve feared the sergeant was right. He glanced at the Indians, who were watching him curiously. "Do you suppose one of them would be willing to come with me for the right price? I'm also going to need help once I get there, so someone who knows the language would mean a lot. I'm willing to pay plenty."