but she had experienced great pain today. He was a fool to have followed

her.

He should let her be. He didn't want her as a burden, and she didn't

want him as her protector. If she needed a protector. "Miss. Stuart, I

just came by to offer my condolences. To see if you were all right, if

you might need anything for the night."

"I'm just fine, Lieutenant." She hesitated.

"Thank you." She whirled around in her black skirt, then crawled into

the wagon. Jamie clenched his hands tight at his sides and returned to

the group. The funeral was just about over. Jon and Monahen and a few of

the others were stamping down the last of the dirt and erecting wooden

crosses over the graves.

The crosses wouldn't stay long. The wind would take them, the dust would

wear them away, and in time animals then men would tramp upon them. The

West was like that. A man lived and died, and little but bones could be

left behind.

Bones and dreams.

"I ordered the men to set up camp, Lieutenant, just like you said,"

Monahan told him.

"Thank you, Sergeant."

"Is that all, Lieutenant?"

"No. Split them even, Monahan. Half can sleep while the second half stay

on guard. Just in cas~."

"In case the Injuns come back," Monahah said. "In case of anything.

This is the cavalry, Sergeant!"

"Yes, sir!"

Monahan saluted sharply. He shouted orders, his voice loud in the night.

The men at the graves hurried after Monahan as he started toward the

fires where the others were already setting up camp. As Jamie watched,

he saw his men melt into the rocks and crevices around them. They were a

crack troop.

They had campaigned through the most rugged Indian territory in the West

and they had all learned 27 their lessons well. They could walk as

silently as any brave, shoot with the same deadly accuracy and engage in

lethal knife play with ease.

It hadn't been easy for Jamie, not at first. Some of the men had

resented the Rebel who had won his promotions so easily. Some hadn't

thought a Reb ought to be given a gun, and many had had their doubts

about Jamie in Indian country. He had been forced to prove his way at

every step, in battle or in negotiations. They'd met up with a tribe of

warring Apache once near the border, and he had shown them something of

his mettle with his Colts as the battle had begun. Later he found out

there had been some whispering about all the Slater brothers, and how

deadly he and Cole and Malachi had been during the war. Overnight, it

seemed, his reputation had become legendary.

He smiled in the darkness. It had been worth it. He had gained a loyal

following, and good men. Nothing would come slipping through his lines

tonight. He could rest with If he could rest at all.

Despite himself he felt his eyes drawn toward the wagon that stood just

outside the circle of small cavalry-issue Aframe tents.

"What a burden," Jon said quietly from behind. Jamie swung around,

arching a brow. Jori wasn't the usual subordinate, nor did Jamie expect

him to be.

"Why don't you quit making the comments and start telling me something

about this von Heusen fellow."

"You really interested?" Jon asked.

"Try me. Come on. We'll get some coffee and take a walk up by the

ridge."

Monahan gave them coffee from a tin pot at the fire, then the two men

wandered up the ridge. Jamie found a seat on a flat rock and rested his

boots on another. Jon stood, watching the expanse of the prairie. By the

soft light of the moon, it was a beautiful place, the mountains rising

like shadows in the distance, the sage rolling in ghostly fashion and

the camp fires and stars just lighting up the darkness around them.

"She's telling the truth," Jon said.

"How can you know?" Jamie demanded.

Jon shrugged, scuffed his boots against the earth and turned to hunker

down near Jamie.

"I know because I've heard of this man before. He wanted land further

north during the war. He was a cattle baron up there then, and he was

ordered by the government to provide members of the Oglala Sioux on

reservation land with meat. He gave them maggot-fiddled beef that he

wouldn't have fed to his own sows. The Indians formed a delegation to

speak with the man. He called it an Indian uprising and soon every

rancher in the area was at war with the Sioux. Hundreds, red and white,

died. Uselessly, senselessly. And von Heusen was never punished."

Jamie was quiet for a moment. He stared toward the remnants of the wagon

train.

"So he's got property now in Wiltshire. And he wants more. And he likes

to rile up the Indians. I still can't do anything, Jon. Even if I

believed Miss. Stuart, there wouldn't be anything I could do."

"Because you can't prove anything."

"Exactly. And no sane white man is going to believe it."

"That's too bad," Jori said after a moment.

"That's really too bad. I don't think Miss. Stuart can survive very

long."

"Come on, Jon, stop it! No matter how powerful this von Heusen is, he

can't just out-and-out murder the woman!

The whole town would be up in arms. He can't own the whole damned town!"

Jon shrugged.

"He owns the sheriff. And we both know that he doesn't have to

out-and-out murder the girl. There are ways."

"Damn!" Jamie stood up, dusting the dirt off the rump of his breeches

with his hat.

"So what are you going to do?"

"I told you. We're riding back to the fort" -- "And then?"

"Let's get there, eh?"

Jon stood.

"I just wanted you to know, Jamie, that if you decide to take some of

that time the government owes you, I'll go with you."

"I'm not taking any time."

"Yeah. Sure. Whatever you say, Slater." Jamie paused, grinning.

"Thanks, Red Feather. I appreciate it. But believe me, I'm sure I'm not

the escort Miss. Stuart has in mind."

Jon pulled his hat low over his eyes, grinning.

"Well, Jamie, me lad, we don't always know just exactly what it is that

we need, now, do we? Good night." Without waiting for a reply he walked

down the ridge.

Jamie stayed on the ridge a while longer, looking at the camp fires.

He'd stay up with the first group on watch; Monahan would stay up with

the second.

But even when he saw the guard change and the sergeant take his place

silently upon a high ridge, he discovered he couldn't sleep. The cot

didn't bother him--he had slept on much less comfortable beds--nor did

the night sounds, or even the nightmare memories of the day.

She bothered him. Knowing that she slept not far away. Or lay awake as

he did. Perhaps, in private, the tears streamed down her face.

Or perhaps she was silent still, done with the past, determined to think

of the future. She believed what she was saying to him. She believed

that the wagon train had been attacked by white men dressed up like

Indians. She wouldn't let it rest.

He groaned and pulled his pillow over his head. It wasn't exactly as if

she was asking for his help. She'd made it clear she didn't even want to

hear his voice. He owed her nothing, he owed the situation nothing.

Yes, he did.

He owed the people who had died here today, and he owed the Comanche,

who were going to be blamed for this.

And he owed all the people who would die in the bloody wars to follow if

something wasn't proven one way or the other.

Still, he didn't sleep. He lay awake and he wondered about the woman

with the sun-honey hair who lay not a hundred yards away in the

canvas-covered wagon.

Sometime during the night Tess slept, but long before dawn she was wide

awake again, reliving every moment of what had happened. Her grief and

rage were so deep that she wanted to scream aloud, but screaming again

would do no good, and she had already cried until she felt that her

tears were a river that had run as dry as the plain with its sagebrush

and dust.

She cast her feet to the floor and stared across the darkened wagon to

the bunk where her Uncle Joseph should have been sleeping, where he

would sleep no more. Joe would lie out here in the plain for eternity,

and his body would become bone, and in the decades to come, no one would

really know that a brave and courageous man had died here fighting, even

if he'd barely had a chance to raise a weapon. Joe had never given in,

not once. He couldn't be intimidated. He had printed the truth in the

Wiltshire Sun, and he had held fast to everything that was his.

And he had died for it.

Tess pulled on her shoes and laced them high up her ankles, then

silently slipped from the wagon. The cavalry camp fires were burning

very low. Dawn couldn't be far away. Soldiers were sleeping in the

A-frame tents, she knew, and more soldiers were awake, on guard, one

with the rocks and cliffs that rose around the edge of the plain.

They were on guard--against Indians!

She clenched her jaw hard, glad of the anger, for it helped to temper

the grief. What kind of a fool did they think she was? Not they--him!

That Yank lieutenant with the deep, soft drawl.

The one she'd like to see staked out for the ants. Walking silently

through the night, she came upon the graves at last. She closed her eyes

and she meant to pray, but it wasn't prayers that came to her lips.

Goodbye, Joe, I loved you! I loved you so very much! I won't be able to

come back here, I'm sure, but you're the one who taught me how special

the soul was, and how little it had to do with the body.

Uncle Joe, you were really beautiful. For all that grizzled face of

yours and your broken nose, you were the most beautiful person I ever

knew. I won't let you have died for nothing, I swear it. I won't lose.

I'll keep the paper going, and I'll hold onto the land. I don't know how

I'll do it, but I will, I swear it, I promise. I promise, with all my

heart. Her thoughts trailed off and she turned around, uncannily aware

that she wasn't alone.

She wasn't.

The tall lieutenant with the wicked force to his arms was standing not

far behind her, silent in the night. In the haze of the coming morning,

he seemed to be a towering, implacable form. He wasn't a heavy man, but

she had discovered in her wild fight with him that his shoulders were

broad, that his arms and chest were well and tautly muscled, that he was

as lean and sleek and powerful as a puma, agile and quick. His eyes were

a most interesting shade of gray, remote, enigmatic, and yet she felt

their acuteness each time they fell upon her. She realized, in the late

shadows of night, that he was an arresting man. Handsome. but not

because of perfect features or any gentleness about him. His face was

ruggedly hewn, but with clean, strong lines. His jaw was firm and

square, his cheekbones were high, his eyes done, but he hadn't promised

her a lick of help in righting things. He didn't care.

The only people who cared were the citizens of Wiltshire, and there

weren't really all that many left. Even the sheriff was one of von

Hcusen's men, put into office during one of the shadiest elections

imaginable.

It was light, Tess realized. The daylight had come as they had stood

there, staring at one another. Against the pink of the sky, Lieutenant

Slater suddenly seemed a towering menace. A pulse beat at the base of

his throat as he watched her. His jaw seemed cast into a slight twist,

then locked as if it held back his temper. There was a good ten feet

between them, and still she felt his heat, body heat. Her heart was

beating too quickly, and something warm churned deep within her abdomen

while little touches of mercury seemed to dance along her back. She

needed to break away from him.

She despised his attitude; she couldn't help but spise him for the blue

uniform that reminded her so completely of the war.