“How’d it go?” Danny asked as Billy burst into the small clearing. Danny was already mounted on his own horse, holding the reins for Locomotive.
“One through the lights, the second through his head. Now we gotta make tracks, Danny. Them might be freed black boys back there, but that ain’t to say they ain’t got one hell of a mad on, right now. And they might have some coon who can track us. Let’s go.”
He leaped into the saddle, jamming the Sharps into its scabbard as Locomotive sidestepped. Grabbing the reins, Billy gigged Locomotive into motion, leading the way down the narrow trail.
“What’s the plan?” Danny called from behind.
“Reckon we can make it to Magdelena’s roadhouse by midnight.” He grinned. “When we do, we’re celebrating. Reckon we’ll dip our wicks in a couple of whores and drink us a bottle of whiskey. Then it’s the back trails north to pick up our pay.”
“You paying?”
“Yep.”
“I want Rosalia.”
“Fine with me, I’ll settle for Helga.”
“That flat-chested skinny red-haired Dutch gal?”
“Yep.”
“Why her?”
“’Cause she lets me make believe.”
“Make believe? What kind of talk is that?”
“None of your damn business.” Fact was, she’d let him close his eyes, lay back, and imagine whoever he wanted while she rode him. And even if she suspected that he imagined a tall blond woman with blue eyes, and if he lost himself in the moment and called her “Sarah” she didn’t care.
63
September 10, 1865
Bret clung to life. For four days fever sought to burn him up. Then he began to mend.
At the end of each day’s travel, Sarah stopped, cared for the horses, built a fire, started supper, and stepped to the back of the wagon where she peeled off Bret’s pus-filled and blood-speckled bandages. Allowing the festering wound to air, she’d boil the old bandages while wrapping the previous day’s around Bret’s slowly healing chest.
The night of the tenth, just north of Fort Scott, Kansas, Bret actually sat up. He positioned himself with his legs dangling from the back of the wagon and watched her as she went about her evening chores.
“You saved my life, Sarah.”
“You’re not out of the thick timber yet, Bret.” She shot him a measuring look from the stew pot. She’d traded with a farmer that day: a tin of salt for a chicken.
Bret nodded faintly, glancing around the copse of trees where they’d camped by a small creek. Cottonwood and ash leaves rattled softly in the wind. From the fire rings and grazed areas they were far from the first to use it.
“I’m going to live,” he told her. “I’m going to do it for you.”
She avoided his eyes. “Why’d you desert?”
“How’d you know that?”
“Parmelee told me before he went off to shoot you.”
He took a breath, as if testing his ribs, and strangled a gasp. For a moment he was silent, then said, “I guess the war wasn’t making much sense to me.” A pause. “Battle after battle, my battery was in the thick of it. All I saw was the mass murder of men. Chancellorsville. That’s when I quit. The Rebs tried to take our battery. I had my boys wait until they were right at the cannon muzzles … and blew them away with canister. Then we fell to rifles and pistols. Drove them back.”
Bret used his thumbnail to pick at the wood tailgate. “I shot this boy. Little guy looked half starved. Dressed in rags. Maybe he was sixteen. Maybe. After the Rebs fell back, this boy kept crawling toward me. He was choking on his blood, crying, ‘Help me, please, mister.’”
Bret glanced up at the night sky. “Can you believe that? He was looking me in the eyes. Knew it was me who’d shot him. But there he was, crawling toward me, reaching out with that shaking bloody hand. Wanted me to save him. Comfort him.” He paused. “And then later I walked out among the dead. You don’t know what canister, shot point-blank, does to people. Something inside me just couldn’t stand it anymore.”
“Paw made me read history. I don’t guess there’s ever been a war like this one. I heard a half-million men died.”
“I walked away after the battle, Sarah. I’ve always had a talent with cards. I can remember what’s played, know how to calculate the chance that an unplayed card will turn up. I just thought, like Thoreau, that my steps would take me west until I ran out of war.”
“I guess it worked until Parmelee caught up with you.”
His eyes were vacant. “Never will figure how he followed me all that way.”
“He scared me.” She straightened from the fire, a wooden spoon in her hand. “Glad you shot straighter than he did. That look he gave me when he left? He meant it when he said he’d see me again.”
Bret nodded, expression perplexed, as though struggling with something. “But for you, they’d have run me down. We both know that. I’d have hung for killing him.” He spread his hands, looking at them as if in wonder. “I’d be dead but for you.”
“Reckon I didn’t want to lose my thirty dollars.” She gave him a conspiratorial wink.
Bret’s dark brown eyes filled with intensity. “I think … Well, you and I have gone beyond a boss and the hired help.” He seemed to pick his words.
“Maybe.”
“I need you to understand something. Just hear me out before you say anything. I have come to love you with all of my heart. My life is yours, Sarah. It’s yours in any way you want to have it. I will remain as your friend. I would be your husband if you would have me. Or I will be thankful to act as just a casual acquaintance. But having said what I have, I will never impose myself on you.”
She stood, heart beginning to pound. Not that his words surprised her, but she had anticipated a sense of panic were he ever to say it. Instead, she seemed paralyzed, standing stupidly,
