'I just think he should appreciate the woman, that's all. And if he didn't mean to, damn it, he shouldn't have tied her up in chains like that.'
Cole, exasperated, stared at Malachi. 'Will you shut him up, or should I?'
'There's a war on, boys!' Malachi reminded them both.
'He should be decent to her —' Jamie began.
'Damn it, I am decent to her!' Cole roared.
'Leaving her alone on her wedding night —'
'Leaving her alone was the most decent damned thing I could do!' Cole said. He wrenched the whiskey bottle from his brother's hands. 'You're too young for this stuff.'
'Hell, I'm too old,' Jamie said softly. He grinned ruefully at his brother, and all the tension between them seemed to dissipate. 'I'm twenty, Cole. By some standards, that's real old. Seventeen-year-old boys are dying all over the place.'
'Quantrill is running a bunch of boys,' Cole said. He lifted his hand in a vague gesture. 'The James boys. The Youngers. And that butcher Bill Anderson. He's just a kid.'
He swallowed the liquor, then swallowed again. He felt like being drunk. Really drunk.
Malachi reached for the bottle. The firelight played over his hair, and he arched his golden brows at Cole. 'You think that Quantrill can really control his men? That marrying Kristin can keep her safe?'
Cole looked out at the Missouri plain before him, gnawing on a blade of grass. He spit out the grass and looked over at his brothers, who were both looking at him anxiously. If he hadn't been knotted up inside he might have smiled. They were both concerned. There was something about the McCahy place that got to a man. He could understand how even the great struggle between North and South had ceased to matter here, had ceased to matter to Kristin. The brutality here was too much. It left the mind numbed.
'I know Quantrill is about to head south for the winter. He doesn't like the cold. He'll make one more raid, I'm certain. Then he'll head on somewhere south — maybe Arkansas, maybe Texas. I'll stick around until he moves on. Then I'll go on over to Richmond. If I can just find some train tracks that are still holding together, I should make it in time.'
'If Jefferson Davis is still in the Cabinet,' Jamie said glumly.
Cole looked at him sharply. 'Why? What have you heard?'
'Nothing. It's just that the battle of Sharpsburg left a lot of dead men. A whole lot of dead men.'
'Watch your step around here,' Malachi warned Cole. 'There's Federal patrols wandering all around the McCahy place.'
'Yeah, I know.'
'That little witch just about got me hauled in today.'
'Witch?' Cole asked.
'Shannon,' Jamie supplied.
Malachi grunted. 'I envy you your wife, Cole, but not your in-laws.'
'And he doesn't mean the Yankee brother.' Jamie laughed. 'It's a good thing Malachi has to ride out soon. I don't think she's too fond of him, either.'
Malachi looked as if he wanted to kill somebody, Jamie thought, but at least Cole laughed, and Cole needed it the most. 'What have I missed?' Cole asked.
'The antics of a child,' Malachi replied, waving a dismissing hand in the air. He reached for the liquor bottle. It was going down quickly.
'Some child!' Jamie said. 'Why, she's coming along just as nicely as that wife of yours, Cole.'
Malachi and Cole looked at one another. 'We could end this war if we just sent this boy to Washington to heckle the Union commanders,' Malachi said.
Cole grunted his agreement. Jamie grinned and lay back against his saddle, staring up at the stars. 'You know, Cole,' he said suddenly, 'I am sorry about the past. I sure am.'
There was a long silence. The fire snapped and crackled. Malachi held his breath and held his peace.
'But if I were you,' Jamie went on, 'I wouldn't be out here with my brothers. Not when I had a woman like that waiting. A woman with beautiful blond hair and eyes like sapphires. And the way she walks, her hips swinging and all…Why, I can just imagine what it'd be like —''
'Son of a bitch!' Cole roared suddenly. He stood up, slamming the nearly empty whiskey bottle into the fire. The liquor hissed and sizzled. Jamie leaped to his feet, startled by the deadly dark danger in his brother's eyes. Malachi, too, leaped to his feet. He couldn't believe that Cole would really go for Jamie, but then he had never seen Cole in a torment like this. Nor had he ever seen Jamie so determined to irk him.
'Cole —' Malachi reached for his brother's arm, and they stared at one another in the golden firelight.
'No!' Jamie told Malachi, his eyes on Cole. 'If he wants to beat me up, let him. If he thinks he can strike out at me and feel better, fine. Let him hurt me instead of that poor girl waiting for him at the house. At least I understand why he strikes out. Hell, she doesn't even know why he's so damned hateful.'
'What the hell difference does it make?' Cole thundered. 'All she wanted from me was protection!'
'She deserves some damned decency from you!'
'I told you —'
'Yeah, yeah, you came up with some puny excuse. You are a bastard.'
'You don't know —'
'I know that it wasn't my wife killed by the jayhawkers, but we loved her, too, Cole. And she loved you, and she wouldn't want you making your whole life nothing but ugly vengeance.'
'Why, I ought to —'
'Cole!' Malachi shouted. Between the three of them, they'd consumed almost an entire bottle of liquor. This wasn't a good time for Jamie to be goading Cole, but Jamie didn't seem to care. And now Cole was losing control. He shook off Malachi's arm and lunged at Jamie with a sudden fury. Then the two of them were rolling in the dust.
'Jesus in heaven!' Malachi breathed. 'Will the two of you —'
'You don't know! You don't know anything!' Cole raged at Jamie. 'You didn't find her, you didn't feel the blood pouring out all over you! You didn't see her eyes close, you didn't see the love as it died. You didn't watch her eyes close and feel her flesh grow cold!'
'Cole!'
His hands were around Jamie's neck, and Jamie wasn't doing anything at all. He was letting Cole throttle him. Malachi tried to pull him off, and Cole suddenly realized what he was doing. Horrified, he released his brother. Then he stood and walked away, his back to his brothers.
'I need to stay away from Kristin,' he said softly.
Jamie looked at Malachi and rubbed his throat. Malachi spoke to Cole.
'No. You don't need to stay away from her. You need to go to her.'
Cole turned around. He came over to Jamie and planted his hands on his brother's shoulders. 'You all right?'
Jamie nodded and grinned. 'I'm all right.'
Cole walked over to his horse. He untied the reins which were tethered to a tree, and walked the horse into the open. Then he leaped up on the animal's back without bothering to saddle it.
'You going back?' Malachi asked.
'Just for another bottle of whiskey.'
Malachi and Jamie nodded. They watched as Cole started back toward the house, the horse's hooves suddenly taking flight in the darkness.
'He's just going back for another whiskey bottle,' Jamie said.
Malachi laughed. 'We betting on when he's going to make it back?'
Jamie grinned. 'You get to bring his saddle in the morning.' He lay down again and stretched out, feeling his throat. 'Too bad I wasn't blessed with sisters!' He groaned.
Malachi grunted, pulled his hat low over his face and closed his eyes. The fire crackled and burned low, and at last the two of them slept.
Cole heard one of Pete's hounds barking as he approached the house. Then Pete himself, shirtless, the top of his long Johns showing above his hastily donned trousers, came out to challenge him.
