Disclaimer: The characters used herein, with the exception of original characters (please don't borrow) are the property of MGM and Trilogy. No profit sought or accepted.
Rating: PG13
Warnings: Language, violence
Notes: Yakoke, Adrian, for a heart deep and true; words cannot say how much you mean to me, and to my writing. And to my new friend, Lynne Smith for beta-reading and valuable suggestions.
Bibliography:
J.D. could see the mountains, blue and distant, behind the almost tidy order of landscapes between him and them. Umber where he was, rough hills and sharp rolls and cuts of earth that appeared to smooth out in the brown distance, then grow ragged again in the tan beyond that, and a pale sandy shade where the foothills began to reach into the heavens again. It seemed like he could see forever, and yet they were pinned down like steers in a chute and hadn't yet seen hide nor hair of whoever was shooting at them.
They'd just descended into this ravine because Vin said it was safer to travel low and off the skyline, when a bullet spanged off the rocks not two feet behind the last mule's heels and sent them all scrambling for cover.
"Who in hell is shootin' at us!" Buck said, throwing himself back down to reload and not the least bit happy to be trapped in this ravine with the mules churning up enough dust to let an Indian get within two feet of him without being seen. Nathan coughed heavily across the way, also reloading, dust clinging to his sweaty face in a pale second skin. Josiah was out there somewhere riding guard and Nathan had expected him to come up behind whoever it was shooting at them now, or at least expected to hear the bark of his rifle, but that hadn't happened yet.
Nobody dared even stick their heads up to see who it was, the fusillade was coming so furiously, there was barely the opportunity to return fire, and by the sounds they were at least evenly matched in numbers. Chris had tried twice to get up over the rim and had both times been driven back, and his concern was that they were being encircled by someone after the rich prize of these mules. He had gravitated to Mary's side before he realized it, a cold and vicious terror gripping him deep in his belly to even imagine her in the hands of outlaws.
Josiah prodded his horse through a stand of pinyon trees not a quarter mile away from the scene of the attack, intent only on reaching the mule-train and his friends to lend his strength and his gun. He never saw the rifle-butt that came swinging out of that tree he had to angle himself under, and his horse kept right on going as he was knocked out of his saddle and dropped to the dirt with a meaty whump.
That much Vin saw, and the figure in dark colors that dropped out of the tree to stand over the fallen preacher, setting his rifle aside and drawing a pistol, which he aimed at the back of Josiah's head.
"You do, n' I'll leave you eyes open for the crows to have at, mister."
And whether the man who had seemingly risen up out of the earth with a rifle dead-eyed at his heart meant alive or dead while those crows pecked, the soldier did not want to guess.
"I thought you was an Injun, we was chasin' a buncha renegades ..." The soldier said for the fourth or fifth time, and though Josiah had no doubt about the sincerity of the soldier's continued apologies, he had many questions about Vin's response when he'd recognized that the man was a soldier. It should've been a relief to have their numbers augmented by experienced men, the safety of their path ensured, but Vin had gone white as a ghost and for a very long moment Josiah wasn't sure he wouldn't shoot that soldier anyway. Once Josiah was armed and the soldier was not, Vin went back to fetch Jules and let Josiah accompany the soldier to his Captain.
Josiah's head ached in a slow rhythm as they rode, praying with every step that no one had died in this mistaken conflict. He'd seen no renegade Indians, but obviously this soldier thought he had, and his fellows had mistaken their mule train for hostiles hiding in the draw. This told him a great deal; soldiers in these territories could surely tell the difference between packed mules and the Lakota in motion - or were they so spooked that a similarity of dust was all it took to attract killing attention? If so, what price had those renegades taken to make the soldiers so furiously eager to kill? He'd heard nothing about an Indian war and he prayed he was not being told it had begun now. He also prayed that none of their own had been hurt, but he had faith in the uncanny ability of the men he rode with to keep themselves, and those under their protection, alive and whole in the most precarious circumstances.
"Cease fire! Cease fire!" Josiah shouted as they approached the back of a line of reclining shootists and were immediately challenged by a young corporal on a very high edge.
"It ain't the renegades, sir!" The soldier cried, and the corporal just looked confused, the firing continued, though not as ferociously as before. Josiah raised his hands and slowed to a walk, sensing a dangerous violence among the men engaged in battle. Obviously this troop had been running long and hard, Josiah observed, blue coats showing dust and wear, cheeks scruffy and eyes hollow from not enough sleep, not enough provender, haggard with hard marching of some duration. But they were not a poor outfit by any means, nor were they young and inexperienced.
He recognized Gerald Monroe at once as he rose up from a conference with his sharp-eyed Sergeant, obviously wanting to know who dared give orders in his command. That insult was plainer than any concern they might be shooting at the wrong people, and Josiah took a measure of the man he didn't like. Gerald strode toward the corporal and returned his hasty salute with grim negligence, watching Josiah as he dismounted and waited, his reins in his hand and a thin trail of blood trickling down his temple.
"If it isn't the renegades, then who is it?" Captain Monroe snapped in the tone of one used to being obeyed quickly and without question, and as the corporal opened his mouth to confess his ignorance, Josiah said,
"Your brothers and sister, if you haven't killed them by now in this blind engagement."
That stopped Gerald cold, though his eyes narrowed in unconcealed umbrage to be spoken to in such a manner in front of his men. He'd lost three men to those God-cursed renegades and had wanted their blood in revenge, wanted them to taste the wrath that was coming when white men assumed their rightful dominion over this land.
"What? My brothers are here?" He was taller than Josiah, if not nearly as broad, his posture erect and commanding, his uniform and boots impeccable under a layer of the day's dust.
Josiah nodded, unmoved by Gerald's aggressive authority, and the Captain pressed, obviously furious to discover it. That was how Josiah knew Vin had, indeed, been taking them a far path away from the one they'd discussed in Four Corners. Why?
"How did they come so far west? We'd intended to meet them over a week ago and have been tracking this renegade band of Sioux thinking they'd ambushed them. This is good news, then, good news indeed!" Josiah wondered about his sincerity when he could have no idea whether his family was unharmed.
"Of course, you will take us to them at once." An order habitually given, a man accustomed to wielding unquestioned authority, which Josiah had his own habitual response to; he bristled at the tone and cocked his head, and though he smiled, it was not entirely pleasant.
"I suggest, Captain," He offered mildly, " That you let me precede you. The men your family hired to escort them aren't going to take kindly to being shot at, and I can guarantee you their blood is running pretty hot by now. Best you let them hear my voice first."
Gerald, broad shoulders straight and true, his weight balanced evenly on both feet, considered this advice without yielding a scrap of his command. The final word would be his, of that there was no doubt; the men rising and coming to him in the absence of gunfire were ready to obey any order he would give, and if he wanted this ... cowboy, for lack of a better term - dead, he would be dead. Fortunately, knowing one had such power made it easy to be merciful.
Josiah scanned their faces; very few young men, all well-armed and outfitted beyond standard military issue, which would come from their own pockets - or someone else's. Less soldiers than ... bodyguards. Could that be why they'd been hasty enough to mistake a mule train for a band of renegade Lakota? It wouldn't surprise him for this Captain to have a personal guard who rendered service not to the military, but to him personally.
Josiah waited placidly, not the least intimidated - which Gerald noted. Finally Gerald nodded. He had noticed as well that the return fire had ceased as soon as his men had stopped shooting, indicating men not prone to wasting ammunition, and looking at the burly eagle-eyed man in front of him, he wondered just what sort of escort his brothers had arranged.
When Vin and Jules arrived at the ravine, the rest had just come together a few moments before. The regulators, Judge Travis and Mary were on one side, and a detachment of 12 cavalry in a loose half-circle behind the Monroes on the other, Stephen talking rapidly while his eldest brother stood not an inch from him looking at the ground, listening intently. Elizabeth stood just out of earshot of them looking very worried until she saw Vin and her niece. Obviously she was alarmed by Julianna's muddy and disheveled state, but Vin saw by her nervous glance at her eldest brother that it had nothing to do with her own disapproval. She wanted to go to her niece but she did not, wary of calling attention to the girl's bedraggled state. He'd never seen her look so ... diminished.
The dark heart of the Monroe family stood among them now, assuming his role as patriarch, taking command as if none would question it, stern and tall and broad-shouldered as a king among peasants, accustomed to being the center of power as if by divine right. Vin felt him like oil sliding over his soul. Duley's brother, and the cornerstone of the wickedness being made out of her love and trust.
Gerald Monroe turned then as if hate were a tap on his shoulder, and he looked back at Vin with eyes the very color of Duley's. Vin's spine got cold, his knuckles whitened on the butt of the mare's leg. None of her warmth, but a nearly inhuman frigidity, scorn unconcealed, disdain plainly offered as if daring daring anyone to object. Though he might have been surprised by the hostility Vin knew he couldn't hide, he dismissed him as if he was of no consequence whatever and looked to the girl Vin suddenly remembered was his daughter.
Jules had dismounted, but she hadn't gone to her father. She was standing right next to Vin instead, close enough that he could feel her subtle trembling and the unspoken need that kept her there.
Jules didn't want her father to be here, he ruined everything being here and she felt his disapproval like a stone pressing on her. It always felt that way, she hadn't seen him for over five years, yet that feeling returned in the first instant he did. He looked at her like someone he didn't particularly want to see, disappointment plain, and she knew her face was sullen, she knew it made him angry, but she couldn't help it. Shaking like a little baby. She'd been so glad when he'd left her with her Aunt, she'd been free.
"Is this how you present yourself to your father, Julianna? Is this how a young lady appears in company?"
Jules might have shrunk back, feeling shriveled and endangered by his temper as she always did, but then she felt Vin's reassuring hand come against her back, his fingers spread almost possessively and so warm they were almost hot. Her chin came up, and though she knew her Aunt was desperate for her to behave meekly and apologetically, she just couldn't do that anymore. Not in front of her Uncle Vin. So she took her fate in hand and instead hefted the dirty bag in her hand, letting one hip cock so Buck had to turn a grin aside as she proclaimed,
"Well, I'd've been cleaner except that darned old muskrat had a really deep burrow. It was worth it, though, I got us a mess of pond lily bulbs and prairie potatoes here for dinner."
Buck couldn't stop himself, 'a mess of pond lily bulbs', she'd said, in perfect imitation of Vin's most laconic drawl, and the laughter burst out of him as she stood there, filthy and grinning proudly at her regal father like she had no idea why he should be upset with her. Soft laughter rippled among the others around Buck like his was, men who appreciated a brave and defiant soul. Even Chris grinned, a shark-like baring of teeth and his eyes on Gerald Monroe like the urge to get in his face was nearly irresistible. The more a man threw his weight around, the more Chris wanted to take him down, it was an instinct so old he no longer knew where it came from, but it was powerful strong.
Elizabeth blanched at the black look Gerald threw in their direction, Stephen copying him closely, seeming to enlarge in Gerald's presence as if his brother's arrival had returned his own power to him. But neither moved or said a thing, smart enough to know they were in the company of dangerous men. Both groups seemed to know that and the subtle tension made the fine hairs at the nape of her neck prickle. She felt James move protectively closer to her, knowing her niece's impropriety would be deemed her failure as guardian. Why did the child have to antagonize her father so? And Vin ... Lord, what had gotten into him? He stood there like he was daring Gerald to take even a step toward the girl, like Julianna was ... his.
Elizabeth felt herself grow paler still, truly terrified now that Gerald would know him, would remember more of Duley's letters than what he was using to gain power and wealth with now and understand what man stood at his daughter's side like her champion.
"Captain Monroe ..." Judge Travis moved out from among them and broke the moment, extending his hand to Gerald so the man would have to turn from his daughter to greet him. Because Travis was obviously a man of some authority, Gerald did so, but not before a stern warning was given to his daughter - his daughter, standing next to a mountain man just like Duley had stood beside their cursed father, choosing that.
"I will deal with you later, young lady; you will come to me this evening after supper, and you will be properly attired and appropriately comported." His eyes narrowed when Jules refused to lower her head, then he turned to Travis.
"My name is Orrin Travis, Captain Monroe, I've been sent by the Bureau of Indian Affairs to evaluate the state of affairs in this region."
Gerald nodded carefully; a glance at Stephen was slightly reassuring, that subtle smugness that said the man was either corruptible or already corrupt. That was good; the wrong official eyes now would be detrimental to his intentions, but another high official in his pocket couldn't hurt.
Travis then introduced their escort, whom Stephen had already told him were a band of outlaws and desperados, but his relief at Gerald's arrival was more telling still. Frontiersmen and gunmen, that was obvious, and he measured each as the Judge introduced them. He was sensitive to the ripple that ran through the ranked men at his back at the name Chris Larabee, and the tall narrow man in black acknowledged it with a wolfish smile.
None of the seven men approached to shake hands, a bare nod from each, even the youngest, was all the acknowledgement they gave, and not a modicum of respect. Not the sort to whom a uniform or gold braid or even, he suspected, a badge, meant anything at all. No matter what Stephen said, however, Gerald Monroe knew at once and completely that these were extremely dangerous men, and there was not a coward or a fool among them. He could always use such men. His fingers flexed almost happily and he relaxed.
"Sergeant, set camp on the rim above us, get the animals picketed and my tent ... there, I believe." Pointing to a stand of pinions that offered some protection from the cold wind.
"Gentlemen, I suggest you pitch your own camp beside us, leaving an area to corral the mules and horses between." Which would protect the animals, a tempting target for the Lakota, but also prevent any of them from saddling up and slipping away in the night unobserved. Gerald's smile was as smooth as silk to see that realized among them, and he drew his two brothers after him. "Please join us for supper in about an hour, we have a great deal to discuss." To Elizabeth he said shortly, "Get that girl cleaned up and properly dressed; perhaps you might lend a hand to the cook thereafter."
Vin's eyes blazed, but hers entreated him to stillness, knowing better than to pick her battles with Gerald in the heat of emotion. Vin knew her for a smart woman and not a cowardly one, and stayed himself. But he considered Gerald's retreating back for a very long moment.
Inside the canvas walls of a tent large enough to accommodate a dozen men, the three brothers met in private. Out of the wind and warming by a small brazier in which a few pieces of coal already glowed, Stephen sat down in a comfortable camp chair beside a brass-fitted folding table with an expansively satisfied sigh. "Civilized amenities again, by God, Gerald, you've got no idea!"
Gerald smiled as he opened a blond wood case from which he drew several small glasses and a silver flask. "I'd say I do, Stephen." A passing remark as he leaned over the table to pour, still smiling, but turning his head to Stephen with a glance coldly ironic enough to bring a flush to that brother's face.
"Well, yes ... but all of this - " Stephen spread his hand at the finery around them, cots and linens and a gleaming wash-tub ready for their use. "Those seven scoundrels managed to leave all our necessary goods behind, Gerald, probably sold every last thing! I tell you, I'm glad we can finally rid ourselves of them!"
"No, we can't." James said, surprising Stephen and drawing Gerald's speculative eye. James seldom spoke up unless addressed directly about paperwork or court proceedings, and more rare still did he openly defy either of his elder brothers.
Gerald had known at once that Stephen's first order of business would be ridding himself of those seven men, unrepentantly disrespectful and undoubtedly as deadly - and probably more skillful at it - than Stephen was himself. Stephen had been made to feel inferior, and whoever Stephen could not intimidate, he either killed or destroyed, never considering whether either option improved his position. It was a shortsightedness he'd never outgrown, and Gerald had long since ceased trying to correct him. But Gerald, himself, knew the value of dangerous men and found it a heady thing to rule them, to master what was so fiercely independent. Of course, it also required great delicacy, because such men often had their own archaic codes of honor and obscure rules of engagement and would turn to savage anything that compromised them, but that made bringing them to his service even more satisfying. Every time he made such a man his servant, he made a fool out of his father, he proved again that there was no such thing as nobility in savagery, no man who couldn't be bought, and every penny he paid such men was proof of it.
James accepted a glass from Gerald over Stephen's shoulder and sat down himself by the table, taking a sip and closing his eyes as the fine liquor burned down his throat. He used the brief moment to take hard grip on himself for Elizabeth's sake. He could not protect her alone, and he'd known Stephen's first demand would be to get rid of the seven. Stephen couldn't help hating men who made him feel so inadequate, but Gerald liked such challenges, he enjoyed corrupting what was vaunted to be incorruptible as if every man so ruined was spit in his father's face. He and Travis and Ezra had discussed this eventuality at length, however, and had formulated logical reasons to retain the seven that he felt quite confident in.
"They know this country, and how to survive it without all ... this." James looking up at Gerald as he loomed over him without flinching, even managing a wry smile at his own shortcomings in having missed these very amenities so much. After a moment Gerald laughed, wagging a perfectly manicured finger.
"As always, opposite ends of the spectrum with you two - it's a good thing that aspect of your feuding is so useful or I might become annoyed." He sat down himself, then, like a King convening court, and with precise movements trimmed the wick of the brass lamp and took a sip of his good single-malt whiskey. His brothers waited in silence, knowing full well how this worked - he would ask and they would answer, that was the way of things. Stephen was obviously relieved to have that normalcy returned, to feel the harness of his brother's instructions settle down on him again. But James was not. He had to convince Gerald to keep the seven with them, there was no way he could hope to save his sister otherwise. Despite a terrible shiver far down in his belly, he called on every courtroom skill he had to appear unperturbed and confident.
"Stephen, your thoughts?" Gerald said, nonetheless watching James, as he always watched them, as if their twitches and expressions told him far more than anything they might say. It had always made James incredibly uneasy.
"Scruffy heathens, every one of them, no better than common outlaws - well, except for that Standish fellow, he might be useful, he's a clever scoundrel, exceptionally clever. You just might like him." Which meant Stephen did like him, so Gerald's eyes flicked again to James for his opinion, ignoring Stephen's flush of displeasure to have him seek his younger brother's assessment. Stephen had been known to make the wrong friends before, and James could be so cautious that opportunities for enormous profit were lost, both had cost him in the past. But the two of them also provided a good balance, Stephen devious and cruel enough to carry out the dirty work of assassinations and bone-breakings that might otherwise expose them to blackmail, and James, once relieved of his conscience by threats of disenfranchisement, was a master at the more subtle legal manipulations necessary to maintain his own spotless public persona, and his moves with their legitimate businesses showed a good grasp of market trends.
James shrugged and replied to the unspoken question bluntly. "He's a riverboat gambler who has lightened Stephen's pockets considerably ..." Both James and Gerald ignored Stephen's insulted indrawn breath, "But I think he could be useful - he never took enough to put Stephen out of the game, which tells me he's smelled out enormous opportunity here. Smooth as silk, butter wouldn't melt in his mouth - he has the wit to carry off any drama you might need, probably any sleight-of-hand as well."
Gerald sat back again, pleased, and Stephen was mollified by James' support of his own opinion.
"The rest?"
Stephen discounted James' opinions; "Too many eyes and ears, Gerald, I'm sure you realize the danger of having strangers like that about at this stage of the game."
"No, they'll have to stay." James insisted quietly.
Stephen slapped the arm of his camp-chair in angry frustration as James again interrupted, a boldness so rare that Gerald ignored his own flare of annoyance at them both and paid him close attention. There was something different about James, a new boldness, that Gerald found quite intriguing. This country has its impact on men, he'd noticed, deprivation and danger could reveal capacities hitherto hidden, capacities that might never have otherwise been called to life. James would usually not dare voice his opinions in so blunt a manner, so nervously meticulous that it often drove both his elder brothers to distraction. But if he was sure of this, Gerald wanted to hear why. One expectantly arched eyebrow invited James to go on.
"It's Mister Travis who might be the problem."
This sharpened Gerald's handsome face in an unpleasant way and James leaned forward, chasing that flare of irritation, fanning the wisp of worry that Travis could be a complication in an already over-complicated design. It was a very fine line he had to tread here to present Travis as a vague threat and also a potentially valuable ally so Gerald would find it prudent to keep him around - and consequently the seven as well.
"Travis says he's been sent to evaluate the climate between the Indians and the army, Gerald, but he hasn't said how far he's authorized to probe or even who has granted him that authority."
Gerald's golden eyes narrowed, he plucked at his lower lip in thoughtful concentration, keen to James' every move and expression. Gerald thought back on the few moments he'd spent in Travis' company, the smooth manner in which the man had interrupted the subtle flare of hostility from the scruffy tracker rising to Julianna's defense. That still made him wonder - why was Julianna's welfare any of his concern? His daughter had more than once made inappropriate friends, but none so dangerous as this one - yet the man had subsided at once, intimating a kind of obedience to Travis that might prove difficult to undermine.
James went on; "We have enemies enough who could have sent him here, though I have my doubts that anyone sent him at all - more likely he volunteered for his own reasons and is acting independently."
Gerald's gimlet eye passed over Stephen as he lifted his glass to his lips once more and Stephen quailed - he'd intimated Travis was already in his pocket, not that he could be a problem. Stephen ground his teeth, afraid now of what James had noticed that he hadn't, the sneaky little bastard! Saving it all until Gerald had come to make him look stupid!
James tried to lean back, struggled to appear casual and unconcerned, as if he was simply reporting observations for Gerald's rumination and decision without any particular personal interest in the outcome. He said,
"Despite his word and appearances, Gerald, Orrin Travis is no lower echelon lackey, he wields authority far too naturally to be anything but a substantial power in his own right - those seven men obey him, Gerald, and they aren't the sort, as I'm sure you've noticed, to be ordered about by anyone. Proof enough that he's far more influential than he's letting on, if you ask me. I suspect he's caught wind of the impending land grants in the Black Hills and wants in on it."
"Or someone in the capital is trying to put him among us as a spy - " Stephen said smugly, which alarmed Gerald.
James hastened to undo that with a black look at Stephen. "At this point, that is very difficult to support. In my opinion, he's here to explore his own possibilities. My sense is that he's been on the frontier a bit too long for his own liking and he's making moves to establish a political career in Washington. Obviously he has ambitions to political office, Gerald, he's got his daughter - she's a reporter, I understand, of some reputation ..." Oh, that was a worthy hit by Gerald's sudden interest, "Writing a biography of his life in the west for publication in the east. I think he'll ally himself with whatever faction accomplishes his own ends for him. Played carefully, we have a chance to establish an ally far more influential than he's given out, as well as a lucrative association that will undoubtedly bear fruit in the future - either as an alliance or through blackmail."
A sardonic twist of Gerald's lips eased James' nervousness; their eldest was listening, lured by the thought of a devious and clever man sheltering selfish causes under the guise of honorable duty. And a reporter of reputation in the family's pocket - what a treasure.
Stephen proceeded, careful not to overplay the hand. "He's looking for opportunity, Gerald, as is Mr. Standish, who is somewhat more ... obvious about it. The two of them, in fact, Mr. Travis and Mr. Standish, are very friendly, I believe Mr. Travis has already recruited Standish to serve his interests."
Stephen blew air rudely through his nose, openly doubting James' perceptions, but Gerald digested it very carefully, not surprised that these subtleties had escaped Stephen. James was counting on that; Stephen was a crude, if effective, power, as a weapon, as a tool to remove human impediments, but there were many times when finesse accomplished far more than brute force, and at this level, with the stakes so high and the subjects of obvious intellect, finesse was of paramount importance.
The three brothers fell silent as Gerald's aide entered the tent, placing the bed linens on the cots with a red flush of embarrassment none of them understood at first until the sounds of mocking laughter were heard in a momentary lull in the activity without.
"What's going on out there, Corporal?"
"Those outlaws, sir. They seem to find us all rather ... amusing." Ridiculous was more like it, but the corporal knew better than to speak to this Captain without thinking.
"Is that so?"
"Yessir." Resentment clear in his stiff posture, "They're standing there watching us and laughing." Personally, the corporal was glad they were laughing, because for the longest time they'd simply stood there considering the troops and the camp and the goods, measuring, quiet among each other in that intense contemplation.
"Well." Gerald said with an indulgent smile, "Prehistoric men likely laughed at the wheel, Corporal, sophistication needn't be sacrificed to crude environs. A civilized man civilizes his own surroundings, he is not diminished by them. You are dismissed."
As the tent flap folded back, however, Gerald had a glimpse of his affronted troops, and beyond them the gunslinger in black still leaning against that slender fir tree where he'd been from the moment the two groups had separated. He looked not to have moved a muscle, in a lazily loose-jointed slouch, but his hand rested on the butt of his pistol, and his pale eyes were keen as an eagle. That one was making it plain without a word, without a move, that from now on one pair of eyes among these seven men would be watching Gerald and his detachment as carefully as they guarded against enemies from without. Gerald felt a bristling at the nape of his neck, an unfamiliar sensation of being threatened that made his heart quicken and heat rise in his blood.
"That's what they're all like." Stephen said darkly, and Gerald understood what he meant. They were dangerous men, which was twice that particular thought had crossed his mind. Not men he wanted working against him, because instinctively he knew that they would be the most formidable opposition he'd yet faced.
James was alarmed by the speculation in Gerald's face and knew he would have to undo the thoughtless damage Chris Larabee had done in an instant - God, he would have to be so careful! Let Gerald see even a hint of fear in him and everything would come undone! Another thought occurred to him with chilling suddenness - Elizabeth or no, might the seven abandon them on their own initiative if pushed too far? Instinctively he knew that their loyalty to Travis did not abrogate their loyalty to one another, and if Gerald threatened one or all of them, prickly and proud as they were ... Hadn't Travis told them how important it was that they remain? James suppressed a shudder and took a surreptitious breath, leaning back with an airy gesture that ignored the reaction of his brothers to the seven. He was taking an enormous chance showing something so close to scorn at their misgivings, and Gerald colored.
"They're danger men, Gerald." James said flatly, surprising his brother by seeming to read his thoughts, "But so are we." All business and determination. "We haven't made any overtures to Travis yet, I thought it best to wait for your counsel." Gerald was listening, suspicious, but he was listening. "But he's no fool, and he's not about to part with those seven men and entrust himself to us, he's far too smart not to insist on his own loyal force of arms. If we insist they leave, he may very well carry forward into fact the ruse of his investigation simply to preserve his own life, and his daughter's. He could present himself a hero in that case, achieving his political ends on our backs. He could ruin everything, and we couldn't stop him."
James leaned forward at Gerald's scornful expression, his hands clasped between his wide-spread knees, and looked at Gerald with grim forthrightness; "Gerald, your detachment might not be sufficient to take his men." Though there were twice as many troops, though they were undoubtedly skilled and formidable.
Gerald actually heeled back in naked astonishment at the conviction in his youngest brother's face, and James pressed that uncertainty; "We can use Travis, and we're far better off with those men either ignorant of our cause or on our side. Here, they're in our hand. Out there ..." A hand describing the vast frontier around them and he sat back, willing Gerald to believe him.
Stephen gaped, knowing James had just end-run him as smoothly as ever and furious to sit there without a word to offer.
"What about that tracker, James?" He challenged, and James looked at him impatiently, as if he had no idea what he was talking about and should desist from this discussion between serious men of intellect.
But Stephen knew James was aware of the man's unseemly attentions to Elizabeth, knew that such behavior rendered her ultimately vulnerable to Gerald, and inattentive as he might be, he had noticed the momentary and immediate hostility between Gerald and Vin Tanner.
"Don't pretend you don't know what I'm talking about!" A sharp edge of victory in his voice made James very nervous - this was precisely what he did not need!
"That mountain man and Elizabeth have been keeping company!" Stephen crowed, grinning at Gerald's black look. "I have some suspicions of my own, you know, that should be listened to!"
Gerald's face was stormy; conflicting information was not what he needed from his brothers at this point, and the very suggestion of Elizabeth permitting improprieties with a frontiersman made the edges of his vision red no matter how useful it could be against her. He examined his brother's faces, color high in Stephen and close to petulance, James more vocal and intractable in his opinions than usual. With a sharply imperious gesture, he commanded Stephen to speak his mind, his attention divided between them for any nuance that would give away private motives. Not only his daughter, it seemed, but his sister had also fallen under the influence of that unimpressive barbarian. Who was Vin Tanner to tempt a woman who'd spent her life refusing every temptation Gerald and an endless parade of opportunists had thrown at her? Why would she risk it unless she sensed her own endangerment and was attempting to recruit someone to fight for her? As if that one man could stand against the inexorable design that had been grinding forward since the day Gerald had set it in motion!
"Both that mountain man and the preacher are friendly to the Indians out here, Gerald, we can't trust them. And because of that damned tracker, all of them are protective of Elizabeth and Julianna - she's encouraging him, I tell you! All these years of denial have finally made her crack, because that tracker is with her whenever he's not out scouting, they take walks together in the moonlight, they've always got their heads together somewhere ..."
"Stephen, the very idea! It's ridiculous!" James interjected, but he could not be too strident or he risked confirming Stephen's suspicions, Gerald knew how close he was to Elizabeth and would assume he was defending her too forcefully, that it must be true.
Stephen ignored him and pressed on. "And your daughter - why, she worships him! Your own daughter, Gerald, lost with him for two days in the wilderness, alone with him! Learning his heathen practices, following him around, going off with him whenever she can - I tell you, she's become disobedient and wild as an Indian herself!"
Although Julianna had never been an obedient child, Gerald had seen her devotion to the tracker himself, and understood in that moment that it was mutual. He was not happy to know the women of his family were enamored of a man so like his father, faithless and inexplicably bound to all but the wilderness he loved beyond anyone, or anything, else. Why did women yearn after such men? What was it in their skittishness and quiet scorn that women found so appealing? It disgusted him as deeply as if Elizabeth had taken a Negro as a lover, and if she was indeed attempting an alliance with this tracker to preserve her own sorry life, if she was using his daughter to do so ... he would take enormous pleasure in killing that tracker, and he would break his own cardinal rules to do it himself.
"I think he's using her ..." Stephen said ominously, knowing by the deepening lines in Gerald's face and the hot burn in his eyes that he'd succeeded in incensing him against both his sister and the tracker. "I think he's wooing Elizabeth to try to find out what your plans are out here - and she might even have told them by now! Someone went through my valise ..."
James' auburn brows flexed quizzically, but Gerald found his reaction significant - Stephen might be lying to improve his standing in his elder brother's eyes, or simply because he wanted revenge against men who likely made him feel like a small yapping lap-dog finding itself surrounded by a pack of wolves. Then again, James could be lying to protect Elizabeth, he had a soft spot for her despite the fact that she'd been a thorn in Gerald's side for years. Her fate was something Gerald and Stephen hadn't discussed with James, as always, his two brothers each knew pieces of the puzzle the other did not, while only he knew the whole. He cultivated their jealousy and insecurity, keeping them at each other's throats and thus away from his. But if James had, indeed, seen those land grants, he would surely surmise the threat to Elizabeth and be moved to protect her.
He drained his glass and stood up, banging it into the tabletop with forceful irritation. Gerald despised uncertainty, had no patience for it and knew how dangerous it was, but he was uncertain now, and the cause of it sat there like lumps before him not even daring to meet his eyes.
"Obviously I'm going to have to take the measure of these new players myself." His displeasure at the obvious failure of his brothers was an ominous force both felt. "My inclination at this crucial juncture of our affairs is to get rid of them immediately, I don't need the damned complication."
"But we need that tracker - " James objected, knowing it would make Gerald suspicious but helpless to prevent it, "He knows this area intimately, he's been an exceptionally good scout, and the rest are gunmen the likes of which we've never seen. We can't let Stephen being intimidated cost us a resource we may well need!"
"Intimidated?!" Stephen cried, but Gerald ignored him, focusing on James and searching intently after the flicker of desperation in that brother's eyes. He wanted the tracker to remain, all the seven - why? Who did he expect them to protect - and why was he afraid? Was it only Elizabeth? How far would he go to protect her? Gerald had never expected the affection between James and Elizabeth to be any real impediment, but had he underestimated it? Had he underestimated his little brother?
"At this point I already have all the resources I need, James, and your seven men may be a dangerous embarrassment of riches." Pressing for a reaction, studying James with acute and unconcealed suspicion.
'Your seven men', James heard, suddenly terrified and fighting to hide it. If he'd given anything away, his own life was in as much danger as Elizabeth's. He managed a suitably sullen expression, as if Gerald's doubt was an insult he'd grown accustomed to and expected.
"I have all the guns I need, James, and an exceptionally good scout who is as familiar with this territory as any Indian."
"Precisely!" Stephen cried, seeing victory within reach, but James shook his head as if resigned to their short-sightedness.
In response, Gerald flung up his hands in disgust, seeing two truculent faces and chins as stubbornly set as ten year old boys fighting for favor. "Bah, you two are nearly worthless to me, do you know that? I need all your focus brought to bear to our common good and instead you're more eager to tattle on one another and sow dissension! You bring me gossip and speculation and damned little else."
James and Stephen said nothing, taut in the threat of Gerald's true temper.
All of them were unaware that at that moment, Vin Tanner was making himself indispensable to James' cause by relieving the Monroes of at least one of Gerald's resources.
Curley was very much enjoying this journey, particularly since their unplanned swing northwest had given him a real enemy to scout against. Yesterday he'd found a fresh trail, a dozen unshod horses, and this morning he had led them to a skirmish that had cost the white Captain two men. Today, he had gotten a glimpse of an enemy any Crow would be famous for killing - no one had even suspected Tashunke Witco was anywhere near! Had they not come this way looking for the brothers Curley was clever enough to have said were likely killed by renegades, they would not have ever known it, his medicine was good. A day, maybe two, and he would be heaped with honor, hopefully in possession of a wavy light brown scalp in testament to his courage and skill.
He noticed the mules first as he approached the Captain's camp, many of them, and then many more horses than there had been. He was attentive to this, wondering whether the white Captain had found his brothers after all. This did not please him, because if they were not dead, the Captain would be less inclined to pursue the Lakota. His hopes of honor and glory faded, putting an angry glower onto his dark and handsome face.
The man who suddenly rose up out of the brush beside him took him down off his horse in a dusty thump, gripped by the leggings at his thigh and the horse-hair fringed shoulder of his hide shirt. Just far enough to die in silence with the camp and safety in his eyes, an irony he appreciated even as his hand struggled toward his waist for his knife, but the man rolled him to his belly, trapping his hand under him, and took hold of the greased crest that stood up off his forehead, setting his knee into Curley's spine so firmly that a single jerk on his hair would break it like a twig. Wisely, Curley fell still, breathing in furiously laboring gasps, dark eyes rolling with trying to see who had caught him. Could one of the Lakota have followed him back here, counting coup by taking him so close to the camp? Were they even now ready to sweep over the camp? Surely none else could have brought him down so quickly and surely, he expected a blade across his back-arched throat at any moment, death his only option.
But when the man spoke to him, Curley was astonished to realize he was white.
"Why are you here? Where are the other warriors?"
Insulted almost beyond his own comprehension to be held and questioned by this white man, Curley spat,
"I scout for the white-eyes. It will be crime if you kill me."
Vin had suspected that from the upright way the Crow warrior had been approaching the camp, as if he was expected and part of it. But it was a Lakota's instinct to take down a Crow, ancient enemy, at first sight, and he'd obeyed that urge without question. Now he let go of the Crow's forelock so suddenly that the man's forehead bounced off the ground in recoil, scornfully wiping the bear-grease off his hand onto the back of the Crow's hide shirt as he rose up off him and took a step back. The scout came to his feet with quick grace, but he found the wide barrel of Vin's mare's leg aimed almost casually at his chest. The white man smiled at him; it was like a wolf grinning, and Curley understood this was not yet done.
"Guess I could still kill you 'by mistake', an Injun bein' an Injun n'all." Vin said.
Curley crossed his arms over his chest and raised his chin, making no reply but that silent dare. The white man surprised him by taking him up on it.
"You are far from home, Crow."
Then Curley realized this white man had to be an ally to the Sioux, and his sneer curled across his lip like a dog baring teeth. "I walk my own hunting grounds." He retorted defiantly, "All this land is ours, the Sioux squat upon it and steal our game!"
"You are one warrior." Vin replied, then said again, "Far from home."
Curley snorted delicately at the dual threat and insult, setting his feet and indicating the camp with a scornful jut of his chin. "The white army follows me on my own hunting grounds to kill Sioux. One Crow warrior does this."
Proud as if these troops fought at his command - which in his mind, Vin realized, they did. The soldiers followed where he led, they slew the enemies he led them to, they made war on Crow foes. They served the Crow. As they would serve every tribe and every ancient enmity between them until there were no tribes left and the white had what they'd intended to have all along.
Suddenly Vin couldn't breathe or feel his knees for the truth that slammed home in that instant. To the people there was no dishonor in scouting for the army against one's native enemies - it was war, scouting was one way to gain honor and experience. The army knew these honorable warriors would not grasp the broader betrayal of an entire people, but Vin was white, and he did grasp it. Vin knew his own, had suffered deprivations and neglect and cruelties no Indian could ever imagine, because they were a people who knew their own health and well-being was part and parcel of the health and well-being of every member of the tribe, of the world itself, interconnected in giving and receiving and respectful of that balance. They would never suspect the depths of duplicity and greed his own race was capable of, it would be more betrayal than any Indian would ever be able to imagine.
The very trait of character he so admired, that very thing that had always put him at ease among them, that was so fundamental in him ... would be used against them to their ultimate defeat. Stubbornly independent individualists, following their own conscience, interpreting their own destinies, not ruled by anyone. Even their chiefs had to earn the loyalty of the warriors, and that fealty could be withdrawn ... Lord, that would be their undoing. The army would use the ancient animosities and grudges between tribes to their own advantage, and the young warriors, starved for the opportunity to earn honors in war, would leap at the chance. There was no wrongness in helping their enemies die, and they would never see that annhilation was in store for them all.
For a long stricken moment, Vin was sure the Crow warrior saw this bleak understanding on his face. The dark eyes widened and he fell still as hunted prey, bewildered and feeling a dark fear he could put no cause to - he was not afraid of this white man. It was not that. But perhaps he knew something Curley did not want to know.
Helplessness didn't suit Vin, it made him mad to think there was nothing he could do to change the people's innocent view of things that would lead to certain destruction.
"You are a fool, Crow," He snapped, his contempt plain, "To think yourself other than the white man's slave."
The Crow's eyes narrowed, his fine-curved lips tightened, but he said nothing and Vin went on, unable to stop himself.
"How fare your own lodges? Do your folk feast on buffalo, or do they sicken and die on wormy agency meat? Do you think them left safely on the agency with the whites as you come out to betray all the People in serving the army? Do you not understand that the white will take it all in the end? Even the bit of land they give you now? As they have done from the sea of the sunrise, so will they do to the sea of the sun going down, they are as many as the stars, and the Crow will disappear from the world, too! All will lose."
Curley sneered at him, unbelieving - the land was vast and could not be possessed, just as a man could not be possessed. Indeed, the concept of the living world being owned was ridiculous to him despite being forced off his hunting grounds - they would go, and he would return again! A man might as well say he owned a waterfall, then, as if no one else could see it or feel its mist on his face, no one else hear the voice of its falling! Did the water begin and end with it? Bah, white men were strange!
"I am a Crow warrior commanding white soldiers at my back, many guns, many good horses!" He boasted stoutly, "By the end of this trail, I will carry the scalp of Tashunke Witco on the barrel of my rifle!"
The white man's eyes, which were the color of the sky just before twilight, opened wide, and in the moment Curley was satisfied that he understood his importance, he was flat on his back on the ground with the white man's sharp big blade at his throat, held there by a fringed forearm across his chest and straddled legs across his body.
"Crazy Horse is in these mountains?" Vin hissed furiously, "Where?" Deeply alarmed, and the weight of his guilt increasing to realize that if he hadn't led the Monroes so far northwest, Gerald and this army and this foolish Crow warrior would never have been here at all. It felt like drowning, like being suffocated in the tangle of circumstances that could not be random. Destinies were shaping themselves around him in a pattern laid long ago, with utter disregard for every attempt he made to change it. Indeed, it had begun to feel as if fighting the flow of the terrible fate coming only made it worse, every thing he did to make it right only making it more wrong.
"Close enough for me to kill tomorrow!" Curley hissed back, and the white man's blade bit lightly, blood a warm thread around Curley's neck.
"I will tell you a thing, Crow, that must be believed." Vin spoke so quietly the Crow would not have heard him had he not been close as a breath, eye to eye. "You should go from here, you should leave these soldiers and go to your own lodge tonight. Because if you do not, this friend of the Lakota will kill you the next time you sleep."
Curley stared up at him, astonished to find himself believing him. He searched the blue eyes, the hard-cut angles of face, and knew it was so. This one had a powerful thing moving in him, a spirit directing his words and actions as spirits did sometimes, for their own reasons and not even the man so moved always knew why. As this one did not - or perhaps he did, but was trying to refuse it. Curley had to respect the sense of destiny he could so clearly feel on this white man, and he knew Tashunke Witco to be a warrior of very strong medicine, perhaps stronger than any other Lakota warrior. Perhaps his medicine had called this man to his cause. Perhaps this was the warning from his dream last night where he'd been in his own lodge far from this place. He made up his mind quickly; there would always be more soldiers to lead against his enemies, the yellow-hair would hire him, and he had the feeling that this particular detachment would never go home again.
"Sir, the Indian scout, he's leaving, sir!"
Gerald scowled up at the man, already in a black mood. "Well of course he is, fool, he can't very well scout inside the damned camp."
"No, sir, I mean leaving, sir. He said we could find our own way home, sir."
Watching Captain Monroe cajole and reason and finally threaten the impassive Crow warrior was a pleasant diversion for the seven men gathered around their own campfire. The scout, who had already gathered his belongings onto his horse, said nothing, listened without making any response, and when the Captain finally ran out of words, Curley mounted up and rode away without a backward look. Curley had gotten very good in the last few years at determining the relative importance of white men, and while this one had a high station, the yellow-hair Brevet Major Colonel was higher and held Curley in good regard; he understood that this white man could do him no harm. It would be good to sleep with his own wife in his own furs for awhile.
"Trouble, Captain?" Travis approached, looking curiously after the Indian and staying back of his shoulder to give Gerald that much privacy to get his fury under control.
Gerald, staring after the scout as if he could hook him with his eyes alone, made no reply, seething to have been ignored by that filthy savage in front of his troops. None of them dared even look his way, but he could feel the seven men lounging around their campfire drinking coffee, watching. Grinning - oh, he didn't have to look to know they were grinning, their rough scorn like nettles on his skin.
Orrin pretended not to notice Monroe's smooth-shaven jaw jumping ferociously, or his clenched fists and bitter eyes. More telling still, however, was his genuine surprise that the Indian had refused to obey him. Travis remembered what Ezra had said when he first saw Captain Monroe - Gerald had enjoyed absolute power for a long time, and it was far more than an Army Captaincy that had instilled such arrogance.
Then Gerald relaxed with chilling suddenness and turned a rueful smile toward Orrin, amber eyes still glinting with temper but wryly philosophical. "Oh well." A flick of his fingers as if he were shaking a wrinkle out of a tablecloth. "What is, is, eh, Mr. Travis? We must find our way around obstacles however we can."
Travis returned the smile, non-plussed by the mercurial shift in mood. His dark eyes were thoughtful and keen; was the man making a veiled threat? Was he trying to find out if Travis was, indeed, an obstacle? No wasted temper to compound his embarrassment, though, already thinking his way around the problem, quick-minded and pragmatic. What a politician he'd make, Orrin thought, deftly turning failures into opportunities to cull commiseration and sympathy. Again the Judge wondered what political power stood behind Monroe that gave him the confidence to even vaguely threaten a high Official from the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Even so far removed from Washington, he carried himself as if that resource were right at hand. Travis patted his broad epaleted shoulder with a meaningful tilt of his head and moved deeper into the game.
"Sometimes, Captain Monroe," he said with a delicately suggestive smile, "What appears to be an obstacle proves to be an opportunity in disguise."
The look Gerald returned was speculative, but warm.
Jules had spied on many a business dinner and grand gathering in her time, hidden on the stairs or in the draperies, secreted behind doors and under furniture still as a mouse. She'd heard plots being hatched with the victim right across the room, she'd seen exchanges of the sincerest pleasantries among people who, in the course of the same hour, went conspiring in the privacy of the next room or along the garden walks plotting the ruin of reputations, businesses, and fortunes. Power and control were everything. Yes, she'd seen many intricate waltzs of intrigue and betrayal, but if no one died before this meal was done, she figured it could be called a miracle. Sharp-toothed smiles and purposeful eyes - and her father was most definitely not in control tonight.
Her father had taken a switch to the back of her legs in the privacy of his tent in punishment for her 'unseemly display', but it wasn't that punishment that exiled her tonight - in fact, she knew he would've loved to have her sitting there at his table in a starched dress with her head meekly down obeying every look and command. No, it was the hand-print on her cheek that he'd given her when she'd refused to cry over his punishment, and his own cowardice in knowing there were those among the seven - her Uncle Vin in particular - who would've taken violent issue to that mark. He'd almost hit her again when she'd looked up at him with that knowledge shining defiantly in her eyes, but he'd backed off in strangely discomfited consideration of the little hellion his daughter had become. It was the first such victory she'd ever had with him, and both knew it would not be the last.
There was a grim-faced soldier posted at the front of the tent where she and her Aunt and Mary Travis would sleep, guarding against her slipping outside, and she made a face at him now as she moved quietly through the darkness away from that confinement. Hmph, setting a guard as if she would never think to untie the loops binding the ground cloth to the wall in back and wriggle right out - her father had been away from her far too long if he thought her so cowed by his presence that she wouldn't even try! Ha, he didn't know the half of what she was prepared to do to thwart him, and warning her Uncle Vin about him was high on her list.
Both her father and her Uncle Stephen had pressed Elizabeth very hard about her friendship with the tracker, which her Aunt had insisted in unusually shrill tones was perfectly proper and harmless. They knew she was afraid, though - and Uncle Stephen strongly suspected there was more than a friendship. Jules knew that, too, she wasn't blind. But she also didn't want her family to be the cause of any further distress to Uncle Vin, so she thought to warn him that her Auntie would be under very close watch, and that it could cause her Auntie a great deal of harm if her feelings for Vin were revealed. Jules was still trying to figure out how to do that without totally mortifying her Aunt, because she wasn't sure, despite his acceptance of Elizabeth's affectionate company, that Vin felt that way about her in return or, indeed, even understood that she had those feelings for him.
She moved on, heading toward the seven's camp, and found her Uncle Vin squatting at the edge of the seven's abandoned camp over a bulky pack lashing it closed. A pair of mules cut from the line were standing like flop-eared shadows nearby and his horse was saddled, two pack-trees lightly loaded - was he going out now? As she opened her mouth to greet him, he moved like he'd been lightening-struck and she found herself unexpectedly staring into the barrel of her Uncle's cut-off Winchester. He swore a single word she was sure he didn't mean when he saw who it was and jammed the long gun back into his holster.
"What'd I tell you about sneakin' up on me?" He hissed, agitated and not at all happy to see her, which got her temper up a little.
"Wasn't sneakin' up on you, I was sneakin' away from them!" She hissed back, fists on her hips and staying in the deeper shadows, suddenly not wanting him to see the mark of her father's hand on her face. At first the thought of him rising to her defense had been grand, but now, in the mood he seemed to be in ... it'd be bloody mayhem, and there were twelve soldiers here already resentful of the liberties being granted to men they clearly considered outlaws and reprobates. They sensed her father's mood like pack dogs, and he was so tense under his smooth manners he was nearly crackling.
Vin looked at her, the skirt of her dress twisted up in her hands like something she wanted to strangle and a faint defiant shame in her obscured face to have been forced into petticoats and stockings and shoes - all presently smudged and fouled like she'd been crawling around in them. That, and the wary fear in her posture made him certain she wasn't where she was supposed to be, and it hurt to see her forced into furtiveness. That man ... well, he didn't know anything about how a father should greet a child of his he hadn't seen in a long time, but Gerald's reaction wasn't it. How a man could have a child and not love it had mystified him his whole life, his own having vanished even before he was born.
"I just came to tell you not to make over my Auntie Elizabeth at dinner, because my father and Uncle Stephen are really mad about you being around her, and they're saying ... " He had not risen from the crouch, but his eyes flashed dangerously; "Well, they're saying not very nice things about her, and you being all moony over her won't help."
"Moony?" He looked at her like she'd just gone crazy, color climbing his face, and she giggled unexpectedly, shaking her head.
"Just don't pay too much attention to her, and don't be mad if she doesn't pay any attention to you, alright? You know how they are about mountain men - heck, Buck and the rest are pretending to be mountain men just to annoy them, it's really funny - but you really are a mountain man, so they wouldn't think that was funny, you know?"
He shook his head, ashamed that caring for him was a source of danger to Elizabeth. How such men could have been born to Duley's father mystified him. "You're making me dizzy - n' it don't matter anyway, I ain't goin'."
"You have to!" She insisted so adamantly that he looked up at her again, surprised.
"Why?" He asked sharply, holding her eyes as she stood at a little distance as if unwilling to come out of the shadows. He knew Stephen resented his attentions to Elizabeth and he regretted indulging his spite at Elizabeth's ultimate expense. Would this Monroe brother remember his name from Duley's letters? And why would he care, now? All he wanted to do was go, now, find Crazy Horse, get this one thing done; in truth, he was angry to see Jules at this point when he'd finally found that focus, because every time he thought he'd found a way to get through things, a job he could actually do, something else cropped up to blow his logic into bits, it was the most exasperating ...
Jules actually stamped her foot to bring his drifting attention back to her, explaining with some exasperation of her own, "You have to go have dinner with everybody, because if you aren't there, they're going to make their own plans about how to get to the forts, and your friends probably won't like them."
"Girl," she bristled to hear that, mad, but then anxious at the returned distance between them this reversion seemed to evidence - she'd thought they'd bridged that well and truly. Uncle Vin didn't notice her reaction and his smile wasn't nice. "Them friends of mine ain't gonna let anybody tell 'em what t'do, they'll make their own plans, mark me."
"And if that means my father drives them all off or something?"
Which wasn't the half of it by the sudden quaver in her voice, and he pulled himself back from the wilderness his mind had taken off into to truly focus on her.
She stood ramrod straight, her face pinched into immobility and her eyes wide and intent as an owl on him.
Jules was awash with feelings of betrayal and loneliness - he didn't care about her! Or if he did, it wasn't enough, he'd leave her here all alone with her father and her Uncles and she'd never see him again!
Vin's eyebrows knit to realize she was trembling, then rose as he understood suddenly where her passionate response sprung from. It didn't matter that much to her who drove who away, but she desperately didn't want to lose him. He had to give up thinking he didn't care about that, because her face made him hurt in a way that was nearly unbearable, though that feeling softened quickly into a peculiarly humble pride. Now that she'd found him, she didn't intend to let him go, and she was Duley right then in every stubborn furious line. He had to admit he did not want to lose her, either. How had he put that out of his mind?
His hands fell still, dangling off his knees as he regarded her with a sideways look.
"Their only scout left, Uncle Vin." And before she'd even had a chance to see a feather of him, a real live Indian and everything! "So they need you. Out of all of them, they need you most, and if you tell them you just won't stay without the rest, then they'll all get to stay, right?" A tenuous smile hinting at her good opinion of her own logic, hoping he'd think about his friends and not realize the selfishness of her wanting him to stay.
Damn if she wasn't right on the money. If he left, Gerald Monroe had no reason to keep the rest of them around, and it was already clear that Stephen would like nothing more than to shed them all. But that would leave Elizabeth only part-way to the frontier forts he'd promised to escort her to, and vulnerable to her brothers - there was something wicked in Gerald Monroe's eyes when he looked at his sister, and it was mirrored in Stephen's. James just looked frightened, and he hadn't stopped to wonder why. And the others - Chris particularly - were there to protect Travis and Mary and wouldn't yield. What would Gerald make of that depth of loyalty between people who were hardly supposed to know each other? Without him to act as scout, they had no leverage to insist on their own terms, he was their bargaining chip.
"Dammit!" He breathed harshly, oblivious for the moment to Jules, "Hell and damnation!"
Vin had made up his mind to just go on tonight without good-byes, just go, because now that the memories had wakened in all these places they'd shared, he knew he'd never have heart to leave again. Maybe he'd perish in the struggle to come, or maybe just haunt the mountains like a wraith himself searching out all the ghostly echoes of her that were more important than living, even. It would be enough, he never feared loneliness with her near, and she was so near in these plains and fields and broken-backed mountains ... It would've been easy to slip off on his own with those guns, find Crazy Horse, pass them along and warn him about Monroe's troops in the area and Custer's likely intentions, keep him from attacking this mule train until the rest could get themselves back toward Four Corners. Maybe fight with him awhile, do what he could for the Lakota for Duley's sake.
He'd been totally prepared to let the six go free of him, and of the risk none of them knew about, ready to have them think he'd deserted them, figuring they wouldn't look for him for being mad about that. But he was not, it seemed, free of responsibility for them, or for Duley's kin. He'd led them here, let them think it was a simple matter when it was not, and because he'd driven that damned Crow scout away to protect Crazy Horse, he'd backed himself into this corner for their sake. All his figuring for naught, again, and she held him back from escape, laid her family before him as both offering and trust. He could not leave, boxed neat as a cage on all sides and hell with whatever ideas he had on his own.
Jules stood and watched him, trying so hard not to cry, because that would make him think she was a baby, make him think she gave a damn - which she damned well wouldn't if he didn't, she vowed! But oh, she wanted him to stay so badly, wanted him to want to stay with her, and she couldn't tell what he was thinking there, still crouched over the pack, balanced on the balls of his feet and looking through his dangling fingers at the ground. His shoulders were rounded forward defensively, the picture of unhappiness. Oh please, oh please don't leave me now, she prayed in fervent silence, because she knew with the exacting intuitiveness of all children that once he was gone, she'd never see him again.
Finally he looked up at her, his face shadowed dark and hollow under the brim of his hat, but his grim little smile was genuinely affectionate so her heart lifted,
"Jules, anybody ever tell you you're way too smart for your own good?"
She couldn't help it, it was either shout or move, so she rushed to him, nearly knocking him down with the force of the hug she flung about him. He braced one hand behind him to keep his balance, and the other closed around her back to hold her certainly to him, feeling the wet shudder of her breathing and hearing joy in her tears that nearly broke his heart. Ah, Duley, he thought with bittersweet acceptance, you set this trap too well, and I'm done for.
"Go on, now." He said at last, setting her back from him and standing up, unable to look directly at her. When she proved reluctant, he gave her a gentle shove in the direction of the camp.
"You go on before you get in trouble. I'll be right along for dinner."
And he wouldn't say so if he didn't mean it, Vin Tanner didn't lie. She squeezed his hand once in wordless gratitude, almost afraid to accept that it had worked out her way, and then she melted into the shadows every bit as well as any Indian child he'd ever seen. He was astounded to feel a ghost of a smile tug at his mouth at that, because surely he had nothing at all to smile about tonight. In fact, the small sound that escaped him had to be bitten hard into before the enormity of what threatened behind it burst free. He dug his thumb and fingers into his eyes helplessly assessing what else Duley wanted of him. How many things could he fix at one time? How would she feel when he couldn't live up to her expectations? Lord - how in hell did he save the Lakota and Jules both from Gerald Monroe, not to mention stopping a war he knew he could not stop.
"Woman, do you know how impossible this is?" Addressing the empty air in a passionate and desperate whisper, "I ain't no hero, ain't even got the littlest idea where t'start ...' Nonetheless, he understood why she was holding him to this camp, why she'd sent Jules to him. Moving him and moving him and stymieing everything he did that might take him off her direction. Her will would be worked - maybe all of it, no matter how he would fight that one thing she intended that he could not ever accept - that in the end, she would send him on without her.
It was a good thing she'd been forbidden her from dinner, because she'd never have been able to keep the glee from her face at how easily her Uncle Vin's friends kept her father off-balance. The gambler was obviously trying to insinuate himself into her father's good graces, wielding his considerable charm and wit to great effect, but Jules knew that even he was her Uncle Vin's friend first. She settled down in the deep shadows of the cook-tent, sipping a tin cup of hot coffee and a piece of roast meat between fresh bread that she'd filched off the crude side-board on her way past. Like she couldn't forage for herself, like her father refusing her participation in the meal meant she'd go hungry. Hmph.
Her Aunt and the widow Travis were helping the cook, but her Aunt was moving around in that quiet scuttle that said she wished she was invisible, her trepidation more of a giveaway to her feelings about Uncle Vin than an outright admission would be. Jules shook her head with a sigh. Her Aunt could do nothing for her against her father, nor for herself if she made herself vulnerable by admitting an unseemly attraction. Except for protecting her farm, her business interests and her independent fortune, she'd always been too afraid of Julianna being taken out of her care to stand against Gerald in anything to do with her upbringing. Jules bet her Uncle Vin wouldn't give a rat's ass about anything Gerald Monroe might threaten to do! He'd spit right in his face, there was nothing that could scare a man who could live high and wide on the land like he did! He'd take her away from her father just like that, and she'd go, happily!
Her Uncle Vin hadn't come yet, which might've worried her except he'd said he would, and the other six had taken up places that allowed them to protect one another's backs in the area the cook had hastily rearranged to accommodate their extra numbers. Her father's troops gathered a few yards away for their own meal, sullen despite the fact that it would be the same as everyone else enjoyed - her Aunt and Mrs. Travis had insisted, and had pitched in the make sure it was so.
To her surprise, it was Mr. Larabee who set to pricking at her father and her Uncles with great good humor, appropriating one of the four camp chairs set around the small table they'd intended to use themselves while everyone else made do around the fire, and lounging insolently there as if he were a beloved relative. She'd never figured him for such a rascal, all dark and somber and flinty as he was, but he was having a right good time poking at her father just now, and she was fascinated watching him do it.
"Looks like you lost a man today, Monroe." The gunslinger said, lean as a snake and his hooded eyes casually innocent, a smirk flitting around his handsome high-boned face.
"It isn't important." Gerald replied with a smooth smile, and Chris' smile got wider, knowing what a bald-faced lie that was and enjoying it tremendously.
Jules knew the departure of that warrior was the only reason the seven were sharing this meal tonight, and they knew it too. As a result, they'd come only when Travis had fetched them, their clothes still rough and dusty, barely washed, unshaven and acting as uncouth as bears out of winter dens, all mocking Gerald Monroe. She wasn't sure her father or her Uncles understood that, but the Travis' certainly did by their nervous faces and quickly hidden smiles.
Uncle Stephen had wanted them gone with their tails between their legs, and her father had intended to put them in whatever low place he figured they should occupy, but the loss of one Crow warrior had made them suddenly invaluable. It was a rich irony lost on no one, but the only ones who enjoyed it were the rougher elements at that civilized repast and a twelve-year old stifling laughter in the layers of hated skirts from the shadows where she hid to watch.
She'd seen her father play this particular nasty game before, he'd even done it to Uncle James more than once; proffering a deliberately vague invitation, he'd planned to allow the seven men to follow Travis and Mary to dinner so he could then pretend dismay at the misunderstanding. Officers did not dine with soldiers, nor masters with their hired men, she'd heard him say. Only this time it hadn't worked at all, this time Mr. Larabee and the rest had the upper hand, and no one thought otherwise. Oh, what a pleasure it was to see her father and Stephen swallowing their pride, beating down the constant urges to fury, it was rich! Rich!
Buck and J.D., ever willing to make trouble, were having a high old time exaggerating the low class her father had assumed for them, Buck touching every slice of bread on the platter sitting on the rough wooden sideboard as if by accident with hands that were not precisely clean. J.D., not waiting for the rest of the meal to even be placed, was chewing with his mouth so far open his shirt-front was littered with bread-crumbs. And the black healer, someone she'd thought almost shy, had boldly taken up a seat right beside her Uncle Stephen and kept trying to draw him into conversation with questions that were ignored and then observations that required no answer until Uncle Stephen started getting really red-faced. Oh, this was going to be fun!
Josiah watched Vin come to the fire at last, slipping in like smoke to an uneasy perch on a crate just barely within the firelight, where he remained even when the meal was laid. The cook waited upon Gerald, Stephen and James with obsequious grace, but everyone else served themselves in a noisy clatter at the side-board buffet-style. Vin's eyes were wide and quick to everything that moved, and there was a light in them so anxious that the Preacher took it on himself to bring him a cup of coffee, at least. Vin took it with a nod, held it as if he didn't know he was holding it. Josiah made his own place unobtrusively near him. Still and silent as he was, however, both elder Monroe brothers were acutely aware of his presence, and their eyes shuttled between Vin and Elizabeth with a keenness Josiah didn't like. The romance that had been a matter of teasing and conjecture suddenly acquired seriously dangerous overtones.
Something was wrong. Vin was never comfortable among strangers or even among too many people, but the disquiet he was radiating now was uncharacteristically volatile. Josiah had no idea what had set him off, but he recognized disaster there. The Judge had asked their forbearance, had asked that they tone down the challenge that had too many napes bristling in this camp, and they did that as well as they could, but there wasn't a one of them to whom submission was natural, and they weren't very good at it.
Josiah knew how important it was to Travis that they see this through to the end, he'd made it clear. Elizabeth Monroe needed them, and Travis needed to gather enough information to successfully prosecute whoever was behind the illegal land grants. The Judge also hoped to stop whatever machinations had been put in place to ignite an Indian War and bring the full weight of the U.S. military to bear before the corrupt officials who had set it all in motion were unmasked. Travis needed Vin, too, and Vin ... well, he couldn't say what was keeping him here right now, but it wasn't Elizabeth Monroe.
Josiah sighed as he took a piece of bread and tore it into his plate to sop gravy. Yes, it would be a miracle if no one was killed before coffee.
Vin knew he should eat, his stomach was hollow and he felt light-headed, half-there. He wasn't sure he could keep it down, though, so he didn't risk it. Everything had to be re-thought yet again and he hardly knew where to start. And there was a deep danger champing around this fire in the flinty strikes of eyes, two packs of dogs stiff-legged and bristling under the pleasant polite words and civil tones. He wanted out from under it all, he wanted ... yet he knew he couldn't put the burden down no matter how heavy it got. For the first time he almost accepted despair.
The soldiers were seasoned men, too many guns to take without damage among the seven, he couldn't get off to find Crazy Horse and give those guns over before one of Gerald's men discovered them. Nothing good was going to come of this, he couldn't right what was so enormously wrong, what kept rushing like an avalanche into ever-deepening disaster. Not a word could he say about it to anyone, too much in him to even try to form words to. Elizabeth was afraid to even look at him, and he wasn't blind to the way Stephen and Gerald watched them for any catch of eyes, any private intimacy. Lord, he hated to see her frightened, and to be the cause of it was a gnawing guilt because he wanted to be near her, sometimes needed to be for the comfort of Duley in her. He shook his head with a sigh that was sick and deep; he endangered every damn person here he had any love for, and he would bear the blame of it like a canker in his soul if they came to harm because of him.
"Now, gentlemen ..." Gerald Monroe laid his fork and knife precisely across his plate with a satisfied smile and gestured to the gathered men like a sea Captain taking the wheel of his own ship. Josiah startled because Vin did - what was the tracker thinking that had him so distracted, so upset? What had happened that no one knew but him?
"As to duty assignments ..."
"Assignments?" Chris drawled, slouching onto his tailbone in the camp chair and dropping his head back so he could see Buck over his left shoulder,
"Buck, I'm confused here ... did we enlist?"
Gerald stiffened as Buck gave him a bright eyed-glance, pondering Chris' question a moment with a smile flirting with the corners of his mouth.
"Why, I don't recall signin' nothin'." He shook his head quizzically, "Can they conscript us?"
"Not unless war has been declared." Nathan said solemnly, leaning forward over his coffee cup, and Chris spread his hands and looked back to Gerald, his smile growing at the man's consternation - he didn't like being interrupted much less talked around. He was used to being in command, and Chris figured it was about time he learned where the limits of that command lay.
Gerald recovered from his surprise with a smile of his own, indulgently patient. Stephen glared at the back of Nathan's head until the healer turned a look his way that seemed placidly friendly and was anything but.
"I'm sure you understand the need for order, Mr. Larabee." Gerald said, and Chris nodded.
"Why, I sure do. I just set my own, Mr. Monroe."
"I need my men as outriders, Travis."
Chris' smile vanished as the Captain turned to Orrin, who'd been watching the exchange carefully without comment.
"Your men can handle their mules and continue to guard the women, the cook and his supplies ..."
Chris had his tongue set behind his teeth, but the next interruption came from an unexpected quarter.
"Ain't no blue-coats goin' out around this train, might's well paint bulls-eyes on all our backs."
Heads turned toward Vin, who'd been so still and quiet they'd nearly forgotten he was there, and the fine hairs on Chris' neck prickled at the blunt hatred that blossomed in Gerald Monroe's eyes when he realized exactly who had spoken so authoritatively against him.
"You guard your folk, Captain, I'll do the scoutin'." Vin kept his voice reasonable with effort, heat too near boiling already rising up in answer to Gerald's animosity.
Gerald, too, tried to contain the automatic response to any reminder of his hated father - this slight scruffy frontiersman was not him, he reminded himself, his father was long dead and this was not him no matter how much his dress and habits and language recalled him. Down to the scorn for all that was civilized like it was a fatal flaw, a perversion he did not understand and did not wish to. For the hundreth time he wished his father was alive to see that civilization roll over this frontier, wanted to see his face when he plundered the places his father had held with more reverence and love than his own family. That anticipation allowed him to almost manage a smile that didn't do much more than lift the corners out of a frown.
"Well, I'd intended that, Mr. ... Tanner, is it? Your skills in that area will be required - however, my skills - and indeed the charge of my duty - are in the area of leadership, and in this chain of command, I am the authority."
"You ain't no authority I recognize, Monroe." Quiet as it was, Chris' glacial voice commanded Gerald's immediate attention. Without a word being exchanged, the pure threat of dominant males challenging each other went forth, two deadly men recognizing each other and accepting with a uniquely masculine madness the fact that there would never be room enough for both.
The soldiers by their fireside were standing up slowly, one by one, as they listened to the rise of argument. All of them had felt the potential for violence from these seven men from the first, and Chris Larabee or no, there were twelve of them not even taking the Monroes into account, and only seven of them - six, more likely, because that fancy riverboat gambler had already connived himself a comfortable billet with the Indian Agent and so he'd remained at an easy backlean in his chair. But he was the only one of the seven whose hand had not drifted near a gun-butt or freed itself of burden in preparation to do so.
"Your men are too damned trigger-happy, Monroe, they're as like t'shoot us as an Indian, I think that's already been made pretty plain." Buck said, again taking Gerald off-guard - did none of these bastards have the slightest qualm about speaking up even as out-gunned as they were? Buck grinned at him, his head at an insolent tilt and his indigo eyes sparking, J.D. behind him with his hands resting on the butts of his pistols, hazel eyes tracking any movement from the soldiers. Several of them bristled at Buck's insult, but Buck just looked on over at them and away again with a dismissive nod.
"I don't want no armed men out there who just might shoot me ... by mistake." Buck drawled.
"What you want is immaterial!" Stephen suddenly entered the fray, incensed beyond caution by the rising defiance among these truculent outlaws. How dare they talk to Gerald that way! How dare they!
"Gentlemen, gentlemen ..." Orrin rose, reluctant to get into it but increasingly alarmed, and more so with Vin got back into it - this argumentativeness was so unlike him that Orrin was immediately silenced, he'd never seen the tracker trade barbs before and he was surprised at the depth of his bitter sarcasm.
"Immaterial to me or to you don't matter a damn t'the Lakota you been chasin' around these hills the last few days! You think because you've found your family n' quit chasin' 'em that they're gonna just slink away like they're relieved or something?"
Blue eyes blazed with contempt and Gerald had the urge to kill him with his own hands for how much that scorn reminded him of his father, but Vin was beyond caution - he needed to keep the bluecoats out of the woods, because if Tasunke Witco's braves killed one of his friends by accident he just didn't know what he'd do, and by the same token he didn't want any of the Lakota falling to his friend's guns. He had to keep army and Indian strictly apart, and he couldn't do that unless he was on his own out there to mislead and redirect both.
"There's likely a scout spyin' on this camp right now, Monroe, wonderin' why you're sittin' still! Hell, d'you even know who you been chasin'?!" Anger tightened all the angles of Vin's face into hard planes and deep-struck shadows, his light voice cracked as it always did when he tried to shout,
"Crazy Horse, you damned idiot! You've been chasin' Crazy Horse!" Hoping to scare the soldiers into hastening home, and glad of the shock on their faces when they understood just who it was who'd been running rings around them for so many days. "You're luckier n' you deserve not t've been taken in an ambush by now, n' I don't intend t'push that luck lettin' these damned soldiers blunder around out there where he can pick 'em off one by one just because you been annoyin' 'im!"
But Gerald wasn't frightened by the news. Indeed, his eyes narrowed in sudden fury and he stabbed one long finger at Vin.
"How do you know that, Tanner, unless you were the one who made my scout desert us?"
Josiah understood immediately that Monroe was right, though the Captain would never understand why Vin had driven the Crow off even if it was explained to them. Crazy Horse ... great merciful God, the man truly was a fool.
"That's exactly what he did!" Stephen cried, latching onto the unexpected opportunity to bring Tanner to ruin, catching Elizabeth's arm in a hard grip and hauling her forward triumphantly into the argument, "And I know why!"
Elizabeth made a distressed sound and stumbled, was jerked to a stop beside Stephen, her eyes enormous and seeking Vin before she could stop herself.
Orrin had a glimpse of Gerald, who was hawk-keen on Vin, and saw with true alarm the calculation in the Captain's eyes. If he figured out how profoundly the tracker sympathized with the Lakota, Vin would be in serious danger of a more sinister motive being ascribed to him than simply courting Elizabeth. Stephen wouldn't think past what served his immediate purpose, but Gerald certainly would. Vin, perhaps sensing that himself, forestalled Gerald's further consideration by going after Stephen Monroe like he had every intention of taking his head off at the neck.
It was an instant of exquisite mortality that Travis would never forget.
A rifle-shot rang out from among the soldiers and took Vin's hat off just as Josiah got hold of him from behind. Julianna Monroe suddenly flew into their midst so Elizabeth screamed in fright that she'd be hit accidentally. The man who'd fired the shot went down as another report followed so close on his own that the second seemed more an echo of the first.
Josiah, Vin thrashing against the beefy arm hard around his chest, drew his pistol with the other, and before the remaining soldiers could bring weapons to bear, six men were on their feet in a racket of pistols clearing leather and cocking hammers. Every one held a bead on a different target, bristling out from one another as though they'd agreed to this order in advance of the cause.
Ezra focused on the soldiers, still hoping to remain neutral with an apologetic shrug, but Chris' still-smoking colt was dead-eyed on Gerald Monroe's broad princely forehead, Buck was pressing a dent into the back of Stephen's skull with his blued gunbarrel, and James found both of J.D.'s guns focused on him like shiny silver-rimmed eyes. Nathan and Josiah bracketed the clumped soldiers as a stunned silence fell, dust and gunsmoke drifting in the sudden stillness.
"Gentlemen, gentlemen!" Orrin cried, palms rising, voice filled with seemingly frightened incredulousness at the sudden outbreak of hostilities,
"Surely you aren't going to shoot one another?" He looked to Gerald with every semblance of helpless entreaty and Gerald accepted the unspoken invitation to assume command of the situation before it got further out of hand.
To Gerald, it was noteworthy that Travis had so little control over the men he'd hired - men who, apparently of their own volition, had gotten the drop on his troops with astonishing speed and efficiency. His furious glare raked across his troops, displeasure very clear. Travis' men were more than random hires, whether they were obedient to his command or not, and they'd ridden together for some time to move in such effective tandem.
"Stand down!" He snapped at his men, and they, with offended willingness to engage further, obeyed. But the rest were not soldiers, and obeyed no one. Slowly, with iron-eyed consideration, their pistols lowered, but notably were not holstered.
Stephen let go of Elizabeth, who went at once to Julianna. The hand-print on her cheek was livid against the pallor of her face, she stood stiff and furious in her Aunt's grasp glaring with fearless and earnest threat at her father. Buck actually growled to see it and Elizabeth's expression was both horrified and ashamed.
"Josiah, get him out of here." Chris said without taking his eyes, or his gun, off Gerald. He'd did not want Vin to see that mark on the girl's face.
Ordinarily, Josiah would no more try to contain Vin Tanner than kiss a wolverine, he'd seen the tracker fight and knew he was both stronger than he looked and hard to hold onto as an unwilling tomcat. But a thin trickle of blood at Vin's temple explained how it was possible now - that shot had clipped more than his hat. Still, he was mad.
"Mary, if you'd help Miz Monroe and her niece?" Chris used her first name familiarly so Gerald would know he didn't like the look in his eyes for her. Order followed Larabee's words, and Gerald's eyes glittered at the threat of that casual authority.
Mary, already standing defensively beside Elizabeth, circled the smaller woman's shoulders in her arm and took them both toward the women's tent with a black scowl at Captain Monroe. Julianna craned her neck and fought her Aunt's grasp on her wrist to assure herself that Vin was alright, but she guessed he couldn't fight like that otherwise - the burly Preacher had his hands full trying to keep hold of him and direct him away at the same time.
As the low soothing rumble of Josiah's voice and the sounds of breathless struggle faded, Nathan holstered his gun with a level sweep of eyes at the ranked soldiers. Then Buck, with a bright grin and a little scolding waggle of gun-barrel and eyebrows, did the same. J.D. realized then that the crisis had passed, and he barked a quick laugh full of adrenaline-shaken pride and holstered both ivory-handled pistols with a little flourish.
That left Chris and Gerald Monroe, hard-eyed and fixed as opposing rams on each other. For a long moment the gunslinger leaned back with the thumb of his free hand hooked over his silver-chased gunbelt, smiling like he was enjoying the stand-off very much. Gerald Monroe, however, had not built the power-base he now enjoyed nor survived this wilderness for five endless years unlearned, and he did not yield. Gun or no. Reputation or no. Stunningly quick skill or no.
When the silence had grown too long and the tension that had begun to dissipate started racheting upward again, Chris broke the spell with a light-catching spin that ended in a backward flip to snug his gun deep into the holster, his smile small and crooked and insolent.
Buck chuckled and shook his head - Chris looked almost happy to have found himself a strong stubborn adversary to pit himself against, itching for fight as he always did when important worries preyed on his mind too long. Good thing Monroe was smart enough to realize that and not push him just now.
Captain Monroe understood now that these men obeyed no one, but were led by Chris Larabee. After so many years and so many formidable opponents, Gerald had today, in this insignificant backwater, met a man who truly frightened him. Gunslinger, and realizing now what that word meant, death in the cold reaping will of his eyes, in the unthought grace with which that gun had leapt to his hand, aiming and spitting fire before Gerald had even registered the fact that he'd armed himself. He'd winged the soldier who'd fired at the tracker and he'd burned that shot right past Gerald's ear. In the terrible focus of those pale jade eyes as they shifted back to him, Gerald had known the gunfighter had put it there with chilling purpose. Money, prestige, power - none stopped a bullet meant to kill.
Likely the most dangerous man he'd ever met. All of them, even the youngest, proven now to be dangerous in more than attitude. They had the skill to back it up, and they'd displayed it to devastating purpose tonight. He looked at Travis with that hard understanding in his eyes, and Orrin tipped his head up, agreement clear. More important a man than his brothers knew, Gerald thought, and he intended to find out just how much more. They would have to convene a serious conversation, and that insistent intent was plain in his expression; Orrin nodded shortly.
"Monroe." The Captain turned in answer to Larabee's curt summons before he could stop himself, startled when the man took a step that put him a small foot away. Nearly as tall as Gerald but whipcord lean, sinuous and sure of his deadliness even out-sized and, Gerald suspected, out-numbered.
"We were paid to get Mr. Travis, his daughter, and your family to Fort Fetterman. Now, you probably noticed we're ... working men." A dry slant of a smile Gerald saw repeated among them. Travis seemed not at all phased that the gunman presumed to take charge.
"We take our work real seriously, it's a real competitive business, you know? Can't let our reputations ride on whoever has the fattest wallet. Lots of money don't mean lots of brains. What I mean is ..." He leaned in close with a sagely threatening intensity and said, "They are the package we've been paid to deliver, and that's just what we're going to do. You run your detachment, Captain, and we'll run ourselves. Stay out of our way. We'll share watches ..." Because he didn't trust Gerald or his men, "Vin scouts, and we ride wide. You keep your column tight and moving, we'll handle the mules."
He'd given Gerald the grace of that close privacy to tell him how it would be without overtly shaming him in front of his command, but it was clearly all the grace he'd give. Larabee didn't even wait for his answer; he tapped his fingertip to the flat brim of his black hat, turned and walked away in a snapping sweep of duster tails.
"Oh, and Captain?" A soft purr of voice at Gerald's ear made him jump - Wilmington had somehow materialized right at his ear, smiling, but his dark eyes grim.
"I was you, I'd keep that little girl in 'til Tanner leaves in the morning; he'll likely be out before dawn." His smile became only teeth, indigo eyes burned with offended displeasure. "And if you so much as give her a hard look, or your sister neither ... well, ain't a man among us would think twice about making sure it never happened again. We kinda cotton to 'em, y'know?" A final flash of a smile, then he, too, moseyed along to join his comrades at their own fire.
Gerald stared at the long broad-shouldered back incredulously - this was nearly beyond comprehension, he was as flabbergasted as he could ever remember being. Would they all feel free to threaten him? What kind of men were these? They did not misunderstand the kind of power he represented, but they didn't fear it, either! Extraordinary ...
"Sergeant, set double watches. I'll be inspecting weapons and gear at dawn. Your performance this evening was woefully substandard - it seems you need reminding that there is no shortage of men who would gladly take the assignment you've neglected, there is no room for complacency at this level."
The Sergeant flushed, the ranks behind him exchanging uneasy looks among themselves. For all the hardship, they enjoyed generous bonuses and were provided with the best equipment and horses, good food, the chance here and there to plunder and indulge personal appetites. Not one figured to let Chris Larabee and his men take it from them; Gerald nodded shortly to see that, then dismissed them with typical negligence, turning to Orrin Travis. This time, however, Ezra Standish stood at Orrin's shoulder, plainly stating his position there for the first time.
"Well ... gentlemen." He included Standish with a short sweep of his hand toward his tent. "Shall we have a chat? I've some excellent sherry."
Vin wasn't feeling sociable, and even Nathan let him be as he dabbed gingerly at his temple with his bandana, glowering in the shadows. But though they left him alone, he sensed their attention to him with a gratitude he couldn't hope to express. They'd stood for him, damned if they hadn't, every one of them. Even Ezra had risked the cover he'd spent so long building and Chris had put aside ... well, he knew how much Chris had put aside for him. For the first time since Four Corners he felt safe, even though he knew he was so far from he could've been dangling by a string over a spike-pit. Josiah nodded to him as he went to his watch and Vin didn't hesitate to meet his eyes, no anger between them. The Preacher smiled so warmly Vin's throat closed up.
His flank throbbed in a bone-deep rhythm, and ribs that hadn't hurt much lately hurt again, his own damned fault fighting Josiah's grip, but it'd only made him madder to be overpowered that way. He'd been crazy mad, and he couldn't be angry with Josiah for keeping him from setting off a bloody disaster.
The rest stretched out around the fire, the sound of their voices and the low mutter of laughter a balm he couldn't deny himself. He sighed and shook his head, carefully, because he was dizzy already. He hurt, he ached, and he was so damned confused he couldn't think a straight line. Vin didn't know how to be confused, he followed a thing clear from start to finish in his mind before he ever undertook it, but this - it was like a maze of conflicting choices and unanticipated circumstances with disaster lurking around every corner. Hell, he couldn't see what was right in front of him half the time much less where it'd end up, and it was hard not to falter in that uncertainty. He'd been a right idiot tonight, that was about all he knew.
After the fact, and in light of the significant glances he was getting, he knew how it looked to have gone after Stephen like he had, and he regretted it almost mournfully. At the time, though, seeing him hurt Elizabeth had been spark to bone-dry tinder and he by-God wanted sincerely to kill the man. That shamed him, because he would've done it if not for Josiah and the boys, and it would've been no more than a vent for other frustrations he was having an increasingly hard time containing. He'd made things harder for her, her innocence now a matter of speculation for brothers already willing to think the worst and quick to take advantage. He needed to talk to her, to apologize, maybe find a way to make it right.
He needed to talk with Ezra tonight as well, he couldn't wait anymore to find out what he and Travis thought was going on, if it matched what he'd found out about the Amber hollow, and the brothers actually were following that long-ago revelation from Duley's letter ... He might come across Tashunke Witco or his warriors so he could share that with them, and arrange to cache the guns somewhere for them. Lord, it'd be a relief to have them gone, those packs drew his guilty eye like they were lights in the darkness and he prayed as for his immortal soul that none of Monroe's men got nosy. After tonight, they'd be looking for any reason, and he couldn't ask anyone to keep an eye to them while he was out trying to keep Lakota and army separate. Monroe would have him shot without a question and assume all the boys were in on it whether there was any proof of that or not. Yeah - the Monroe brothers would like that just fine.
He caught himself drifting and took a breath that stopped short on a hitch of pain. He had to eat.
Within the Captain's warm tent in the golden glow of lamplight and the inner glow of amber sherry, Gerald, Stephen, James, Ezra and Orrin Travis were getting down to brass tacks.
James, his heart in his throat, watched as Travis followed Chris' lead in assuming the role of representative for other, more powerful, influences. It was a cunning approach - a big fish only respected bigger, and since Gerald enjoyed powerful allies in the U.S. government, Travis was skillfully intimating international interests. Had they discussed it, or had the gunslinger independently sized Gerald up with such succinct insight? Unsurprisingly, Gerald's eyes had gone shark-sharp.
"So - you didn't hire these men yourself." Gerald said, with half a scolding smile alluding to the seven men he'd assumed to be bodyguards, but who had turned out to be far more deadly than that.
Orrin smiled blandly at the affront on Stephen's face and lowered his eyes in a sham of good-humored chagrin. "Well, technically I did, as your brothers witnessed. I may have neglected to say that they were recruited elsewhere and sent to that dusty little town for our purposes. I'm sure you understand why the charade was necessary, Stephen, we weren't entirely confident of our intelligence regarding your interests - indeed, your capabilities - in these territories."
Travis' smile went as oily as any flim-flam man Ezra had ever seen ply his art, and he controlled his admiring eyebrows with an effort. He hadn't known the old man had it in him. Orrin had been sparring through two glasses of sherry, masterful jabs hitting Gerald's vulnerable spots in hints of foreign banks, a bright-eyed query about the veracity of the amount of gold ore that had been discovered, a suggestion of powerful mining interests that might out-bid anything 'on the continent' - there the suggestion of the international cabal he and Ezra purported to represent.
"And you've been trying to charm information out of my brothers to reassure yourselves." Gerald said, still smiling, his eyes keen and deep. It was not so much a question as an understanding being reached. There was an excitement tickling deep in his belly and he very much liked what he was discovering here despite the threat those other six men represented. They could wait. Gerald could put animosities aside, being quite skilled at judging the moment an unwilling ally's usefulness ended, freeing him to take his vengeance unimpeded. Revenge held in abeyance was usually the sweeter for it, and he wanted this to be memorable.
Larabee's legend would end in this frontier, and that tracker's as well - oh, that one he wanted to kill with his own hands, everything about him was his despised father incarnate - and any of the others who tried to stand against him. He didn't think Travis or his backers would object to losing hired men, even men of such caliber, when the prize was so substantial.
"Captain Monroe, if you don't mind." Ezra leaned forward over his elegantly crossed wrists, turning the glass of sherry between his fingers with sensitive attention.
"The fact that the gold is there seems not to be in question. That you own considerable interests - or have that potential - is also understood by now ..." Intimating, but not saying 'land grants', which would have taken considerable espionage resources to discover. Gerald's eyes narrowed - did they know Elizabeth's unwitting part in it as well? Ezra didn't give him time to ask;
"However, those territories are legally held in perpetuity by the native inhabitants under the terms of a treaty we understand isn't even five years old."
Gerald laughed, a richly satisfied sound that Stephen echoed, and the Captain set the cherry of his cigar glowing, exhaling a carefully controlled stream of smoke into the air above his head. "Yes, that's so. However, I'm assuming you've done your research, gentlemen, and therefore I don't understand how that could be of any concern. Such treaties are transient placations of the natives, meaningless on their face. Look at the record - that much is public."
Travis and Ezra both pretended some surprise, looking at each other with raised eyebrows, and back to Gerald for explanation, which he was happy to provide.
"This country belongs to the white man from sea to shining sea, the natives just don't know it yet. We mollify them with treaties, yes, but an examination of recent history makes it abundantly clear that we've been pushing them wherever we want them for years, abrogating treaties at will. For some reason, they keep trusting us - likely because they know they have no choice. By the time they figure out we intend to have it all, their race will have been culled of their leaders and warriors, their children set on the white's road, and the remainder will be tame enough to imprison on reservations."
Travis felt himself get very cold, a black despair rising that he knew Vin felt even more keenly than he did - everything this bastard was saying was true, and would come to pass regardless of the criminal immorality of it.
"We intend to let them fritter themselves away trying to fight us," Gerald continued airily, "Setting them against each other, carrying out winter campaigns as we've been doing the last three years when they're more stationary - bastards are hard to catch in the summer! We're confident everything will have legitimately passed into our ownership within five years - well, everything we want, that is."
Ezra felt Orrin's dismay no matter how perfectly bland his imposing face remained, and he nearly shivered himself to imagine how Vin or Josiah would feel to hear this callous campaign of genocide and theft laid out so bare. It had, indeed, been years in the planning, and did not originate with Gerald Monroe.
The gambler managed a faintly dubious look, knowing Travis wanted more than the general outline of a far-reaching scheme that couldn't be credited to anyone in particular. "Five years? That's a rather more distant investment window than we envisioned." Glancing doubtfully at Travis and making sure Gerald witnessed that.
"It is, indeed, more long-term than anticipated, Captain." Travis agreed, somber now as though the bright gleam of these prospects had suddenly tarnished in the prospect of a long wait. But Gerald waved his hand, shaking his head with a cheerful expression that Stephen echoed smugly.
"Believe me, I don't plan to be in the military another five years, Mr. Travis! I've invested nearly all I intend to in that service, my time is far more valuable than that. But the conquering of a kingdom begins with its richest resources, which then provide the means to expand and advance our interests."
He tipped his head so Orrin understood this was a serious revelation. "The Black Hills, Mr. Travis, are where my interests lie. The government has already made an offer to purchase it from the Indians."
"But they've refused." Travis replied, seeming mildly curious. Ezra was keen as a cat to a mouse.
Gerald shrugged, gestured with his spread hands, "It doesn't matter. The timing of events is not in the hands of the Indians, it's right here ..." Bobbing those open hands before them, big long fingers flexing as though around a power only Monroes could see, because Stephen was grinning as well. James dredged up a wan smile.
Travis tapped his own pursed mouth with his forefinger, thick dark brows beetled in focused consideration of the man across the table from him. They were near the heart of the matter now, and it had to be played carefully. No man striving to be king would be displeased to find the scope of the kingdoms available to him broaden, and the world was a far larger place than even this huge new country Gerald planned to plunder - that temptation was what Travis was dangling, and so far, Gerald believed him.
"Don't worry, Mr. Travis! It's all arranged! The areas we need will be cleared of Indians within the year, mining contracts have already begun to be negotiated - although it now seems we need to accommodate further bids." A tight bright smile and Orrin nearly heard the whir of fishing line being reeled in. He sat back and let Ezra take the Captain over the final hurdle, praying for the lightest of possible touches. He needn't have worried; Ezra felt the careful edge and relished inching out onto it in defiance of these Monroes.
"Yes, I'm sure that's the case." Ezra said almost dismissively, as if that fact had been known all along else he wouldn't have been bothered to make this distasteful trek. He could see Gerald wondering what else he knew, and he smiled back at the Captain as if he already possessed every bit of information he wanted and was only confirming them in this conversation. He posed the matter almost casually, but his eyes and his smile told the Monroes that any further dealings were predicated on the answer.
"The investments envisioned require more than your personal assurances, Captain Monroe, solid though they may be. Although we can certainly take what you've given us to our ... well, I imagine the term 'investors' would be apropos ... our position in favor would be strengthened considerably by something a bit more specific. I, for one, would like to escape this magnificent territory at my earliest convenience, and in order to accomplish that, our colleagues must have avenues by which they can investigate the solidity of the principles other than yourself."
He let that veiled demand lie there like a piece of ice on the table between them, and he let Gerald Monroe examine him with unconcealed suspicion. He was asking for the heart of many years labor, for information that could destroy those so named if these two men were not what they presented themselves to be. But a comfortable smile wreathed Ezra's handsome face as if it didn't really matter much to him whether this deal went any further or not, and though Gerald considered him for a good long time, he found himself believing him.
Gerald said, "I'll need to confer with my brothers, sir, as partners in this venture, before the discussion turns as revelatory as you seem to require." His brothers rose with him and the three men convened in the doorway of the tent in low conversation. James said very little, Stephen was suspicious but had no idea what to do and did not want to speak against something Gerald obviously found highly appealing. Finally Gerald posed a question to James and stared at him awaiting a response James was obviously thinking carefully about. At last, the youngest responded with a terse nod, and the men returned to the table.
"Alright then. As a show of good faith - and because, as my brother James reminded me, you will be accompanying us to Ft. Fetterman and will therefore not be able to do anything with the information prematurely - I will give you three names of officials in the U.S. government who have been instrumental in the planning and execution of this campaign. And because timeliness is apparently paramount to you, I shall also explain the flashpoint of the Indian War we intend to set off."
Ezra laughed with delight, admiration gleaming in his eyes; "Do you now? A war?"
"A war, Mr. Standish." A knowing smile and a certain nod, his eyes savoring that victory already. "There are forces poised even now in readiness for that eventuality, all it will take is an appropriate incident - which has already been arranged. There are troops on alert and ready to march that can be here within days."
"This ... incident?" Travis asked, dark eyes sharp and demanding. He was not going to be satisfied with generalities, Gerald realized, and he shrugged, making the decision to go fully into the promise Travis offered.
He leaned toward Travis and Ezra, his posture and eyes and voice speaking with vague threat to the necessity for discretion and secrecy. "There is a contingent of Indians who have come into the trading posts and reservations as if in obedience to orders from Washington to do so or be considered hostile. This cooperation renders them far less of a threat to the Eastern media than is serviceable to us, since the threat of hostilities is precisely what will bring the full force of the government to bear. A good number of these warriors simply leave their families at the trading posts, where they are safe and receive rations, while they go out hunting and raiding off the reservation. They find this very amusing. I find it both annoying and insulting. Therefore, one of those Indians will kill either the trading post Agent or a member of his family - of course, that Indian will be killed attempting to escape, and the possibility that several more warriors might perish as well to make the magnitude of the threat clear is under consideration. The point we wish to drive home is that there is no such thing as good faith dealings with these savages, enraging even those who might have sympathized with the natives to the point of supporting a policy of enforced removal."
"You intend to kill a white man, in addition to one or more Indians, to start this war." Travis said flatly, as if simply to clarify matters in his own mind, and Gerald shrugged philosophically.
"Sacrifices will be required, and the letting of white blood by supposedly peaceful Indians is paramount. I'm sure you agree."
Travis nodded, and managed to look as though the necessity indeed justified murder and bloody treachery. Tried to look as though these were normal and acceptable acts of business and not so shocking that he wanted to draw his gun and shoot this heartlessly calculating excuse for a man right between the eyes.
"And you can offer assurances that the military will, indeed, be so willing to engage? Be prepared for it?"
"Major General George A. Custer himself is at our disposal, Mr. Travis, and indeed has been instrumental from the very start - he commands the forces that will engage the enemy immediately upon our report, and there are at least three separate commands within three days quick-march of Fort Laramie with Indian targets identified and mapped. The U.S. military will descend on the unsuspecting lodges of our enemies like the hammer of God."
"And the timetable?" Ezra pressed, still smiling even when Gerald tick-tocked his finger playfully.
"Not all, Mr. Standish! I believe I've offered enough to assure you of the guaranteed success of this part of our plan. But I also believe you might be well-advised to send a telegram immediately upon arriving at Fort Laramie suggesting in the strongest possible terms that your ... cabal ... put forth their offer expeditiously." His smile grew broad and promissory, very pleased with himself.
"I'm satisfied with that." Travis said with a short nod; "Now, those three names?"
Two hours later, Vin still hadn't eaten and didn't feel much like it anymore. He'd tried to sleep and couldn't get comfortable. He'd sat by the fire while the others slept and couldn't get warm. Now he was walking trying to work the spongy feeling out of his knees and the fog out of his head. He hadn't been able to talk to Ezra; by the lamplit shadows of the Captain's tent, they were still talking, and he prowled the dark aimlessly, not feeling right in body or mind, not feeling completely there.
"Are you alright?"
His spine about went though his skull he startled so badly, and Elizabeth shrank back in alarm at the violence of his reaction.
When he'd managed to swallow his heart again he exclaimed on a husky and breathless laugh, "You're bad as Jules - you Monroe women can sure sneak up on a man!" She was surprised to see a tremor pass through his hand as it came off the butt of his sawed-off Winchester. She moved closer to him in the darkness, peering up into his face and dismayed by his pallor.
"Oh, you are not alright, are you!" Catching his forearm as he tried to withdraw and holding him near with more strength than he figured she was capable of. "I'm going to ask Nathan to have a look at you ..." she began, half-turning to do that very thing and obviously intending to haul him along with her, but he set his heels in true alarm and refused, snatching his arm free of her grasp almost violently.
"No we won't. I got things t'do, n' he'll just want me sittin' or layin', or in company when I need t'be out there on my own." Indicating the trail ahead with a jerk of his chin. "It ain't nothin' Elizabeth, ain't nothin' I ain't taken care of myself many a time."
Trying his best to reassure her but absolutely determined not to have Nathan interfering. She scowled at him, her arms folded over her bosom indecisively, but remaining in front of him so he couldn't leave without going around her. If she made a fuss, it would be taken out of their hands and she knew that as well as he did; appraised of need, Nathan would not be put off, and it had already been abundantly demonstrated tonight that Vin could be overpowered if need be. He read the threat of that consideration in her eyes and thought about just riding out right then to avoid it, but suddenly her face softened anxiously, and she reached out again to touch him almost tenderly.
"Vin ... you truly don't look well, if you won't allow Nathan ... then you must allow me."
"I'm alright, Elizabeth, I am." But by then she'd seen the faint glitter of fever in his eyes, felt it in his hand under hers, and her delicately arched eyebrows flexed together in worry. She shook her head and her eyes were ruefully affectionate.
"We Monroes are hard on you." She said, and her hand slipped off his to cup the hard bone of his cheek for a moment so brief he didn't even have time to flinch.
"Well, come walk with me, then, Vin, since neither of us is destined to sleep tonight."
"That might not be a good idea, Elizabeth - I been meanin' to talk t'you about ... I'm sorry, I was a plain fool tonight and put you in a bad position with your brothers ..."
"Sssh." Her fingertips stopped against his mouth, partly because she didn't want him to feel guilty about coming to her defense, and more so she wouldn't have to hear him say it was a mistake.
"An apology is the last thing you owe me, Vin Tanner, I won't hear it. And we should be quiet so near my brother's tent anyway."
His calloused palm was nearly hot in her hand and she relished the contact, her heart rising for no good reason.
Vin's head buzzed almost pleasantly as he followed placidly along through the dark behind her, half-lost in the color of her hair, like red-tipped coal, loose down her back in the gusting winds. Only the sudden lack of that wind made him realize she'd led him into the cook-tent, dimly lit in expectation of Travis and Ezra's return and their two cots set tidily side by side with a small folding table between them. He pulled his hand away at once, feeling suddenly hot in the absence of the night's cold, and she looked back at him with a softly triumphant smile at having fooled him - not a hard thing to do as tired as he was, and the quiet closeness of the tent was peaceful in its way. He cocked an eyebrow at her, but made no objection when she backed him up to one of the cots and sat him down, critically appraising the angry red cut across the side of his forehead.
"At least let me wash that for you, alright?"
"It's alright, Elizabeth, I took care of it."
"Did you now." Fingering the blood-stiff strands of hair so he sighed and rolled his eyes. He sat quietly, his hands folded with odd formality in his lap, his eyes following her as she fetched the wash-basin and soap and towel that the adjuvant had laid out for Travis and Ezra. With brisk efficiency she worked up a lather on a corner of the towel and came to stand in front of him with it, looking down at him with her head cocked to one side warily.
"Will you let me?"
"Will you be stopped?" He replied with a quick flash of a grin that she answered in kind.
"No." She stroked the soapy cloth across his forehead gently, and after the initial sting of the graze passed, it was almost nice to have someone taking care of him who didn't scold the whole time. For a second he considered letting her at the cat-clawed flank that ached so ferociously, but the very thought made him blush so she looked at him curiously. No, he'd take the towel and soap with him to the stream and take care of that himself. He closed his eyes against the sting of soap in them as she worked gently at the hair of his temple, and kept them closed in abject pleasure at the feel her slender fingers combing through it, rinsing and wringing, the small sounds of water and the quiet competence of her touch. Nice. It was all he could think, how nice it was, how good it felt. There was so little lately that felt good.
Elizabeth stood between his spread knees, so small a woman that even with him sitting down she hardly had to bend to minister to him. His eyes were closed, and she took advantage of that to look at him in this close proximity, her heart aching for the way he unconsciously leaned into her touch, half-smiled when she used her fingers to gently untangle the long strands as she cleaned them until the cloth came away unbloodied. Then she simply stood there, touching his face, prolonging the odd sort of trance it seemed he'd gone into. Like a wild thing forced to be still long enough to be hypnotized by a human hand. She felt his hands on the outside of her legs, a very light touch unconsciously meant to steady her and his hands had to go somewhere, he probably wasn't even aware he was touching her - but oh, she was. It was a timeless moment feeling free to touch him, knowing she was taking advantage of a need he couldn't even acknowledge having, but having that same need herself. The touch of someone who cared, of another living soul who knew what they suffered and cared.
At some point he recognized that she had finished and he opened his eyes, looked up into her serene face as if spellbound by it. He said softly,
"I am sorry, Elizabeth. I know how it looked, me goin' after Stephen, I embarrassed you."
A dimple appeared at the right side of her mouth and her eyes seemed to look far into him. She shook her head as if he was being slightly dim and braced his face between her palms like a mother to a boy she was pleased with.
She savored the texture of warm skin, whiskers long enough to be soft against her hands, she looked into his wide earnest eyes with an aching tenderness for how he misunderstood his own worth.
"No woman of character, Mr. Tanner, would ever be embarrassed to have people think she was loved by a man such as you."
He had no answer for that kindness, but enormous sympathy for the loneliness it encompassed. She was alone, she was afraid, and she needed him. Surrounded by friends and family, and yet both of them were alone. Her hand slipped down his cheek, surprised to see loneliness reflected back at her, a mutual need he was either unaware of or refused to acknowledge. He was remarkably unfamiliar with his own feelings in some ways, she found that both endearing and profoundly sad.
When she bent over him and put her arms went around his neck, her hands gently enclosing the back of his head, he gave her the embrace she needed. His arms encircled her hips and his head came to rest under her chin. Blood-red hair fell down around him and it was so familiar, and so kind, that he, who hated being touched, who had only once in his life allowed such familiarity unchallenged, sighed deeply and remained.
James, by habit and necessity, faded into the background as the other four men carried the discussion to its conclusion. After years of dealing with unscrupulous men he now faced the fact that he'd become one, too, just as he'd always feared. Lie down with dogs ... or, as he looked at the faces around the little table, with cobras and mongooses - mongeese? He suppressed a laugh that would have sounded as hysterical as the thought itself was. Murder. Great God in heaven, now it was murder, yet his own shock thumped hollow and false in him. Who was he kidding? This couldn't be the first time Gerald and Stephen had resorted to killing, and all these years of not wanting to know, not asking about what they held back from him, did not make him any less guilty. Only cowardly. And Elizabeth was squarely in their path. She'd asked him point-blank why she was here, suspicious from the start and thinking now about what sinister reason her brothers might have for insisting on it. He'd feigned ignorance, how could he tell her, make real the terrible terrorized grief threatening in her eyes to know ... He took a sip of sherry, watching the others over the rim of the glass. There was hope, though.
Those seven men had intimidated Gerald this evening like he'd never seen done before, and the two men in this tent now ... well, he'd never seen his invincible elder brother led so smoothly by his own vices. Orrin Travis and Ezra Standish, as opposite as men could be, plied their separate skills in smoothly deceitful tandem, and they were succeeding admirably. Now the four of them were fencing and parrying in genteel combat toward what his brothers supposed was a more lucrative agreement than they had ever dreamed - he could see the self-congratulation in their faces however subtle. Never realizing their downfall was being described in every word, every revelation. When that day came, they'd remember him sitting there in silence, and he could only pray whatever justice was exacted would leave him and Elizabeth unscathed.
He was ashamed of what Travis and Ezra saw of the Monroe brothers that night, ashamed of himself for being part of it and ashamed of betraying his own flesh and blood. How much uglier the rest of it was, the part Ezra and Orrin did not know. The original betrayal, where all of this had begun. Gold, power, murder, and at the heart of it revenge against the father who had rejected them. Revenge sought so single-mindedly that by now even contemplating the murder of their own sister was just another step.
"She's jumped the broom with some unwashed trapper - but by God, they've found gold in that wasteland - brothers, that crazy old reprobate who sired us has finally given us an inheritance we don't have to be ashamed of!"
James remembered that night and that hushed conversation over the rough scrap of a Elizabeth's letter from Duley. Gold that could've done their family a world of good, could've elevated and exalted them as they all thought they deserved - he remembered thinking that then, swept away in Gerald's anger, and he'd never asked himself why their father and Duley were content to leave that shining fortune where it was. Gerald had returned the purloined letter to the envelope with a coldly gleeful smile and tucked into his desk with a slim packet of others he'd intercepted. Elizabeth would have them back and surprise them all with her fury, but it would be far too late. He remembered the unholy gleam born that night in Gerald's eyes that had never left them again. From that act of spite against Elizabeth, who would hear no ill of her father, a boy's sullen resentment had burgeoned into a mature hatred James had never understood completely despite being swept up in it himself.
Gerald, Stephen in adoring lockstep, had ever been dedicated to opposing their father, his rough manner and appearance and behavior an embarrassment among their peers, outspoken and utterly contemptuous of the manners and considerations of civilized society. What he held dear, then, they despised, what he considered noble they delighted in casting down. That letter had given them a focus for their bitter quest to defeat his memory, and a carrot rich enough to engage George Custer and countless others to conquer and plunder this frontier.
His father had been a frighteningly mythic figure during his young childhood, the cause of breakingly brittle tension in his mother during his infrequent returns home and the subject of subtle scorn in town and among his familie's influential friends and business acquaintances. He'd never heard him raise his voice, yet had witnessed that voice slicing through his mother's most strident tones and silencing her. He'd never seen him strike another human being, but he'd witnessed wary respect of the threat alone in men twice his father's size. He'd never seen him scorn any man openly, but he'd seen the obviously righteous threat of it chase powerful and wealthy men from his presence. He didn't look like other men of his station, never wore a suit or a vest or proper shoes, and yet he had a dignity James recognized in Elizabeth, too. Distant and soft-footed and looming so huge in James' memories that he could have been a grizzly bear in men's clothing, an object of terrified fascination. Duley he'd barely known at all except for his mother's pure hatred of her, and because of the blame heaped on her absent head he'd almost felt an affinity with her, though she'd escaped and he never would.
Unlike Elizabeth, who seemed able to comprehend what she did not experience herself, he'd never understood how a life so wild and dangerous and devoid of comfort could be so beloved, or what sort of soul could not only survive it, but long for it with a yearning so deep not even the ties of blood or wealth could keep them away. From whence came the enormous satisfaction he'd always sensed in his father when he headed back out into the woods again?
James remembered the last time his father had disappeared like that. He remembered him telling his mother that night that he regretted having left his youngest son to her upbringing, he said she'd ruined the boy, and that he'd never be a proper man. Though he'd never told anyone he'd overheard it, that shameful hurt had informed every day of his life. He understood a great deal that night and in the days after when Duley ran away and the household was in an uproar. He'd been conceived to entrap his father, a man who could not be trapped short of death, and when the plot failed, his mother turned on him as if the blame was his, as if his birth had driven her husband away. He'd been his mother's pawn, his father's guilt, his brothers' tool - but there had been one place he was valued, one pair of eyes that always fell gladly on him - he'd been Elizabeth's comfort and joy.
It was very difficult for a moment to draw a full breath. He loved Elizabeth, and he was only just remembering on this journey how very much. She had always made him feel ... worthy, somehow, better than he thought he was, loving him in return with a patient faith that he would rise above his brothers one day. She was like a gentle conscience instilled young that would not be silenced by distance or absence - which was something that Gerald perhaps did not understand. Unfortunately, Elizabeth also loved both father and sister devotedly, and had tried to explain to him what had been explained far too well by his father himself in that overheard moment of the last argument between his parents. Now he saw, only now, that Gerald had used that sole point of contention between him and Elizabeth as a wedge more effective than he'd ever realized.
A clinking of glasses and the heel of Standish's boot on his foot roused him from his reverie. The automatic smile learned in a hundred court-rooms and board-rooms leapt to his face and he raised his own glass with a jerk to join the toast.
"Why don't you show the gentlemen to their tent, James?" Gerald smiled warmly, and though he knew Gerald and Stephen wanted time alone to plot in secret even from him, this time James was glad to oblige.
They emerged from the tent into a brisk night heavy with the threat of rain, and Travis' smile vanished. He was so furious he was nearly chewing on his own tongue; three names, and he knew them all. Two were unsurprising but for the true extent of their perfidy, but the third ... good Lord, he'd danced at her daughter's wedding like a favorite Uncle! Her husband was a trusted friend and confidant peripherally involved in this very investigation - obviously that friend had no qualms about confiding in his adoring wife, never suspecting her greed and acquisitiveness would lead her to serve the dark nameless forces of government as a spy. Orrin had always known she was an ambitious woman with a quick mind that would have made her a political power had she been male - which she knew and resented. Evidently she had seized the opportunity to push her unwitting husband ahead politically and enrich her personal coffers without regard to loyalty to the man she'd married or to his friends - or to the righteous cause she'd agreed with so vocally. It infuriated him to recall the sympathy on her face for the 'plight of those poor Indians' when all along she'd been feeding whatever she could overhear or wheedle out of her husband to the very perpetrators of that heinous plot.
"We have to tell the rest about this." Ezra said to Travis in a furtively quick-eyed whisper as soon as they'd gone far enough from the tent to do so, his color high, and the Judge's burning eyes landed on him like coals. Ezra knew that fury wasn't directed at him and he took no offense, having a greater capacity than most to accept the existence of evil philosophically. James was pale and clearly shaken, but he'd held together in there and Ezra gave him a reassuring grip on the shoulder as they reached the cook-tent, dimly lit from within.
"Yes, I agree." Travis finally said, the shadows stark on the seamed shadows of his face. "I'm not sure about Vin, though."
Ezra took a peculiar pride in having the Judge look to him for the deciding opinion until he realized he didn't know what it was. Vin was possessed of an extremely short fuse of late, and had expressed a loyalty to the Indians in question that would render him duty-bound to their salvation. Ezra had to admit he didn't know what the tracker was capable of if he learned what the Monroe brothers were planning, and there was also the matter of Elizabeth Monroe, assuming he had true feelings for her and believed her threatened. Tanner had an old-world way of looking at things that not even the Judge's plans would compromise, and Ezra understood that they needed to stay together with the Monroes, not have Vin trying to kill them out of hand. Keep your friends close, your enemies closer, every one of the seven kept that wise tenet, and it seemed Judge Travis did, too. The Judge's eyes narrowed on him, but Ezra wouldn't be rushed in thinking it through.
"It would compromise things, to put it mildly. I do believe we would be very hard put to keep him from killing them outright no matter what larger interests their temporary survival might serve." Ezra mused bluntly, and James reared back, unnoticed - kill them? They actually believed Vin Tanner would just ... kill them?? Corrupt or not, they were his brothers, and he didn't want them dead, nor did he want any part of allowing that to happen!
"You can't let him do that!" He cried softly, and Travis turned him an absently acknowledging glance.
"No, no, of course not." He said, but Ezra knew it was Vin's future Travis was thinking of, not the Monroe's. If he killed them - prematurely, at least, before the entire plot could be exposed - the principles would scurry into hiding and Vin Tanner would hang. Not even a Judge could restrain the force of blind justice and they would have no proof he'd acted in defense of the Lakota or Elizabeth Monroe.
"We say nothing to him, then." Travis declared, knowing Chris wasn't going to like it, that none of them were going to like holding out on Vin. "We get to the telegraph in Ft. Laramie and send word of what we've discovered, but we'll have to go on to Ft. Fetterman as planned, Gerald won't allow anything else and my friends won't be able to move quickly enough to interfere if he intends to set this in motion sooner than we thought. This isn't something that's being planned for the future, gentlemen - it's happening now, and we're right in the middle of it."
James could not look away from his dark stern eyes, the warning so clear he didn't even need to hear the words, though Travis spoke them in grim certainty.
"You mustn't say anything to them, James."
"But they're my brothers, and if you've got a man among you with such murderous inclinations ..." He realizing as he said it how hypocritical it was and felt himself redden in a mortified rush. If Vin Tanner killed, Travis' expression clearly said, it would not be for any personal gain. Both Travis and Standish moved closer to him, almost closed in on him, and the subtle threat was not lost on him.
Travis' voice, however, was reasonable and calm. "We can't afford to have your brothers' backers in the east become aware of our investigation or they'll abort - and cut their losses with your brothers, Mr. Monroe, they'll make scapegoats of them to avoid justice themselves. For the same reason, we won't inform Mr. Tanner of what your brothers have planned because he has deep loyalties to the Lakota and would compromise the investigation as well." Which was, he knew, putting it mildly. Privately Travis acknowledged that at any other time he would have turned a blind eye and let the tracker do what he had to do. "We have to play this out to the end, too many lives depend on it. If we can stop the ignition, the murder of the trading post agent ..." His brow furrowed with unpleasant thought and he turned away from them both, knowing Ezra, at least, would recognize the look in his eyes - the same look Vin had when he'd told the tracker there were already miners in the sacred Black Hills.
Even if they kept Vin contained and then prevented the Monroes from striking the spark of an Indian war now, they would not be able to keep it from coming altogether. The best he could hope for was a little time to avert genocide, to temper his government's desperate need to fill their war-emptied coffers with as honorable a treaty as could be forced. It was not a pleasant thing to know he was so ineffectual against so great a wrong, particularly when it was the very entity he loved and served that that was perpetrating it. This was a brave and great country of unbounded potential, but to have such acts legitimized by political fiat betrayed the ideals that were its foundation and he was bound to do what he could against it. But even if the scandal ruined the plotters, even if they were imprisoned and rendered harmless, the harm had already been done. An vibrant and courageous age of exploration would end in conscienceless greed. He'd not wanted to live to see this day, but he had. He was sure Vin would be far less philosophical, though he deeply regretted the necessity of the deception.
He turned back and found them both watching him, James hanging back in the shadows. "Then we don't tell Vin." He said heavily, "At least not now."
Until federal marshals could arrive to effect arrests, until his friends had found a way to prevent any help coming from Gerald's powerful allies - because he had little doubt with that third name that the information he telegraphed back to his own allies would not remain secret for long - even if he warned them to leave her husband out of the loop, that alone would surely alert her well enough. He didn't mention this to Ezra, because he couldn't afford to erode the gambler's faith in those allies - that there was so unexpected a snake amongst them shook his own faith quite enough, and by now he knew he needed Ezra.
"James," Orrin turned to the youngest Monroe, seeing panic barely contained and a confusion of loyalties he had obviously only just realized.
"James ..." He said it again with a soft authority that called James' attention, his arms folded tight across his chest. Travis voice was burdened, but determined. "I regret the position you find yourself in, but I remind you that your brothers have put you here. Our goal is their arrest and the exposure of a corruption in our government that must be prosecuted. You're not a fool, you must have given some thought to what would happen to them, that they'd be punished. But you are also not cut from the same cloth, and I think that's as obvious to you as it is to me."
Elizabeth had said that, too, and James had the sudden image of her face that brought with it an unexpected courage. Orrin acknowledged it in his suddenly earnest eyes with a tight but approving nod.
"There are a lot of lives in your hands right now, Mr. Monroe." Orrin said softly, like a man bitterly familiar with the weight.
James couldn't speak as the true enormity of this evening's events finally settled in him, but he nodded, and he shook their hands, Ezra's and Orrin's, with great resolution.
He stood in the dark outside the tent long after they'd gone back in, lost in grim thought, then he shook himself and decided to take his time returning to Gerald's tent. He didn't want to walk in and have them stop talking, or pretend to be discussing something frivolous. He wanted them to be dead asleep, in fact, until he could get hold of himself properly.
He lit a cigar with shaking hands and immediately felt the eyes of the gunslinger in the camp beyond, a dark sliver of shadow with a rifle cradled across his chest, and then the healer from the outer shadows marked him, too. It was almost laughable how safe that hostile attention made him feel - if he had to do this, at least he had formidable protectors!
Then about ten yards to his right he saw the tracker emerge from the deeper shadows between the two camps and walk toward his campfire. James followed his progress a moment before turning and walking on, missing his sister still standing in the darkness Vin had just left.
She watched Vin go, feeling his absence so acutely that her body leaned after him. So soft-footed he had to make a noise so as not to startle the gunslinger on sentry. She'd noticed a tension between the two men she didn't understand, but Vin felt secure enough to take off his gunbelt before swinging the heavy buffalo robe around himself and settling down against his saddle and packs. She smiled to know he would truly sleep this time. In the darkness with no one to see, her unguarded face expressed the fullness of her heart.
The following morning, the rain Vin had predicted by simply saying "Rain." out loud to no one in particular broke in sizzling crackles of thunder and a fast-moving boil of low black clouds. It was a hard constant deluge that had Peso's ears unhappily set, and he couldn't hear a damned thing, barely see ten feet ahead. Miserable to be out in, but he still felt some better than he had last night. Elizabeth had made him something to eat and found Nathan on his watch to complain of a headache for some willow-bark tea, which she made Vin drink. She told him James was their ally and touched him gently to see the relief in his eyes that someone would look after her while he was out scouting. For that half hour or so they were side by side near enough to keep each other warm, looks case eye to eye mere inches apart, an intimacy strangely healing to them both.
This morning he felt more settled in himself even though it had the dark tone of resignation to an inescapable fate. There were things Duley needed, a guilt he knew was hers sighing in his dreams, and if he thought only of that he could put one foot in front of the other and try to do at least that right. He wondered if Duley had sent Elizabeth for his comfort, knowing her sister and knowing him, because surely Elizabeth's care had returned his focus to him. He wasn't sure, but he'd damned well die himself before he allowed harm to come to either Elizabeth or Jules - they were Duley's, so they were also his in a deeply possessive way he didn't stop to wonder at. Beyond that he refused to think further, because thinking just made his troubles wider and deeper.
He pulled his collar up behind his neck to keep the rain out, one gloved hand running over his face as he nudged Peso on. Had a headache the size of Texas and the cat-clawed flank was aching, but not so he couldn't do his job. He'd been too tired to check it last night, and this morning hadn't liked how tender it was nor how red, but he'd changed the bandage and figured it would do.
He'd found no sign of the Lakota and couldn't be sure they were even still in the area, but a party this size would be a mighty tempting target in open ground even to a band as small as that with Tashunke Witco; the sign he'd found yesterday after convincing the Crow scout to go home said there were no more than six of them - that they'd managed to damage Monroe's troops as much as they had was a satisfaction to him.
The Chugwater valley was still, however, far more open ground than he liked. He cast around after the branching directions of the tree-choked ravines to see which the mule train could follow and remain in relative concealment. Of course, the Lakota could use them just as well for the same reason. There were places, however, where they'd be visible from any of the buttes standing here and there like blunt flat teeth in an endless mouth. At least the rain would prevent any dust column giving them away.
A few hours later he turned back, Peso assuming an almost hypnotically rhythmic gallop, enjoying the open spaces. He was watching for the line of mules and so saw them slip in a dark line down out of the mountain and onto the plain along the route he'd marked with stones Josiah could read. He got down, not bothering to suppress a pained groan or hide an awkward stiffness, and stood looking around very carefully. First near in a piercing sweep, then far with the glass for the edges of things, the shapes where detail was too far. Then he repeated that near/far pattern for any change in shape or feel. The Lakota could be underfoot even out here and not be seen, but if they moved, the outlines would change. It was a non-specific way of looking that relied on instinct and intuition, and Vin was very good at it.
Gradually, he relaxed. A dark diffuse ribbon insinuated itself into the pale grey breadth of sky, a hailstorm moving, the line curving with the wind, flickering with lightening but so far away the answering thunder was only a faint mutter. It would probably miss them. The Lakota might be watching them at a distance, but they weren't here now, not liking nasty weather any more than anyone else. There were too many whites now for only six warriors to attack on the open plain, and if he could keep Monroe's men from being lured away by the Lakota in smaller - more easily killed - numbers, he should be able to keep them safe.
He squatted down, scanning with the glass between the faint line of the pack train to the spot he'd marked for their night's camp, and when he'd satisfied himself, he set to looking for what dinner might have come out of hiding. Peso cropped the short new grass and chewed in a heavy grind of molars and he slipped the bow out from under the left fender of his saddle, strung it and walked a few yards away from the contented horse into some scrub brush and waited. Pronghorn and white-tailed deer were curious critters, and before long he had one of the former. He gutted it and buried the offal, it took him two telling swings to get it up behind the saddle. Then he mounted up and gathered the peace of the sundown and the plains and the wind, wrapped himself up in it and took it with him into that camp where waited family, and friends and enemies.
To be continued...
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