When the war ended…
Cole paused again, wondering if the war would ever end. Those in Kansas and Missouri had been living with the skirmishing since 1855, and hell, the first shots at Fort Sumter had only been fired in April of '61. Back then, Cole thought grimly, the rebels had thought they could whomp the Yankees in two weeks, and the Yankees had thought, before the first battle at Manassas, it would be easy to whip the Confederacy. But the North had been more determined than the South had ever imagined, and the South had been more resolute than the North had ever believed possible. And the war had dragged on and on. It had been more than two years now, and there was no end in sight.
So many battles. An Eastern front, a Western front. A Union navy, a Confederate navy, a battle of ironclads. New Orleans fallen, and now Vicksburg under siege. And men were still talking about the battle at Antietam Creek, where the bodies had piled high and the corn had been mown down by bullets and the stream had run red with blood.
He lifted his hands and looked at his threadbare gloves. He was wearing his full dress uniform, but his gold gloves were threadbare. His gray wool tunic and coat carried the gold epaulets of the cavalry, for though he was officially classified a scout he'd been assigned to the cavalry and was therefore no longer considered a spy. It was a fine distinction, Cole thought. And it was damned peculiar that as a scout he should spend so much of his time spying on both sides of the Missouri-Kansas border. He wondered bleakly what it was all worth. In January he'd appeared before the Confederate Cabinet, and he'd reported honestly, as honestly as he could, on the jayhawkers' activities. Jim Lane and Doc Jennison, who had led the jayhawkers — the red-legs as they were sometimes known because of their uniforms — were animals. Jim Lane might be a U.S. senator, but he was still a fanatic and a murderer, every bit as bad as Quantrill. But the Union had gotten control of most of the jayhawkers. Most of them had been conscripted into the Union Army and sent far away from the border. As the Seventh Kansas, a number of jayhawkers had still been able to carry out raids on the Missouri side of the border, plundering and burning town after town, but then Major General Henry Halleck had ordered the company so far into the center of Kansas that it had been virtually impossible for the boys to jayhawk.
As long as he lived, Cole would hate the jayhawkers. As long as he lived, he would seek revenge. But his hatred had cooled enough that he could see that there was a real war being fought, a war in which men in blue and men in gray fought with a certain decency, a certain humanity. There were powerful Union politicians and military men who knew their own jayhawkers for the savages they were, and there were men like Halleck who were learning to control them.
No one had control of Quantrill.
By that spring, General Robert E. Lee had been given command of the entire Confederate Army. When he had met with that tall, dignified, soft-spoken man, Cole had felt as if the place he had left behind could not be real. War was ugly, blood and death were ugly, and screaming soldiers maimed and dying on torn-up earth were ugly, too. But nothing was so ugly as the total disregard for humanity that reigned on the border between Kansas and Missouri. Lee had listened to Cole, and Jefferson Davis, the Confederate president, had listened long and carefully to him, too. Judah P. Benjamin, secretary of war, had taken his advice and when Quantrill had demanded a promotion and recognition, his request had been denied.
Cole wondered briefly if the violence would ever stop. He wondered if he would ever be able to cleanse his own heart of hatred.
Suddenly he forgot the war, forgot everything.
He could see the well to the left of the house, near the trough, and he could see Kristin standing there. She had just pulled up a pail of water.
Her hair was in braids, but a few golden strands had escaped from her hairpins and curled over her shoulders. She was dressed in simple gingham — no petticoats today — and she had opened the top buttons of her blouse. She dipped a handkerchief into the bucket and doused herself with the cool water, her face, her throat, her collarbone, then flesh bared by the open flaps of her blouse. Hot and dusty, she lifted the dipper from the pail and drank from it. Then she leaned back slightly and allowed the cool water to spill over her face and throat.
Cole's stomach tightened, and he felt his heartbeat in his throat, and he wondered what it was about the way she was standing, savoring the water, that was so provocative, so beguiling, so sensual. He nudged his horse again, eager to greet her.
He came in at a gallop. She spun around, startled. The water spilled over her blouse, and the wet fabric outlined her young breasts. Her eyes widened at the sight of him, first with panic, he thought, then with startled recognition. He drew up in front of her and dismounted in a leap. Her blouse was soaked, and her face was damp. Her lips were parted, and her face was streaked with dust. She was beautiful.
'Cole…' she murmured.
He pulled her hard against him. He found her lips, and he kissed her deeply, and she tasted even sweeter than he remembered. She was vibrant and feminine. He choked out something and touched her breast, feeling her nipple hard as a pebble beneath his palm. She melted against him. She gasped, and she trembled beneath his touch. Her lips parted more fully, and his tongue swept into the hot dampness of her mouth.
Then, suddenly, she twisted away from him with another choking sound. Startled, he released her. She shoved hard against his chest, backing away from him, wiping her mouth with her hands as if she had taken poison. Her eyes remained very wide and very blue. 'Bastard!' she hissed at him. She looked him up and down.
'Stupid bastard! In a Confederate uniform, no less! Don't you know this whole area is crawling with Yankees?'
'I'll take my clothes right off,' he offered dryly.
She shook her head stubbornly. She was still trembling, he saw. Her fingers worked into the fabric of her skirt, released it, then clenched the material again. Her breasts were still outlined by her wet blouse, the nipples clearly delineated. He took a step toward her. 'For God's sake, Kristin, what the hell is the matter with you? You're my wife, remember —'
'Don't touch me!'
'Why the hell not?'
'You're a bushwhacker!' she spat out. 'You're his — you belong to Quantrill, just like Zeke.'
That stopped him dead in his tracks. He wondered how she had found out. A haze fell over his eyes, a cool haze of distance. It didn't really matter. He'd had his reasons. And though he wasn't with Quantrill anymore, if he'd found the right man when he had been with him, he would have been as savage as any of them.
'A friend of yours stopped by here right after you left in the fall,' Kristin informed him. 'Bill Anderson. You remember him? He remembered you!'
'Kristin, I'm not with Quantrill any longer.'
'Oh, I can see that. You got yourself a real Reb uniform. It's a nice one, Cole. You wear it well.
But it doesn't cover what you really are! Who did you steal it from? Some poor dead boy?'
His hand slashed out and he almost struck her. He stopped himself just in time.
'The uniform is mine, Kristin,' he said through clenched teeth. 'Just as you're my wife.'
He didn't touch her. Her face was white, and she was as stiff as a board. He started to walk past her, heading straight for the house. Then he spun around. She cringed, but he reached for her shoulders anyway.
'Kristin —' he began. But he was interrupted by a man's voice.
'You leave her alone, Johnny Reb!'
Cole spun around, reaching for his Colt. He was fast, but not fast enough.
'No!' he heard Kristin scream. 'Matthew, no, you can't! Cole, no —' She threw herself against his hand, and he lost his chance to fire. She tore her eyes from his and looked over at the tall man in the Union blue coming toward them with a sharpshooter's rifle raised. Kristin screamed again and threw herself against Cole. He staggered and fell, and he was falling when the bullet hit him. It grazed the side of his head. He felt the impact, felt the spurt of blood. He felt a sheet of blackness descend over him, and wondered if he was dying. As he railed against himself in black silence for being so involved with Kristin that he never heard or saw the danger, Cole heard the next words spoken as the man
who had called to him, the man who had shot him, came forward.
'Oh, no! Oh, my God —'
'Kristin! What's the matter with you? I'm trying to save you from this jackal —'
'Matthew, this jackal is my husband!'
