Dark Stranger sb-4 Read online

  "My temper! I would never —"

  "Yes, you would! You would have taken foolish chances to get here. You would have been afraid because of what happened to you with —"

  She broke off, remembering that Emery had said that his wife had been pregnant when she had been killed.

  "Oh, God, Cole, I'm sorry. I just realized that you would probably rather that she… that I "

  "What the hell are you saying?" he asked hoarsely.

  Kristin shook her head miserably. "Your wife, your first wife… You were expecting a child. I'm sorry, you must be thinking of her, that you would prefer —"

  "That she had lived? That you had died? My God, Kristin, don't you ever say such a thing, don't you even think it, do you hear me?" He caught her against him. He threaded his fingers roughly through her hair, and suddenly he lowered his head and buried his face in the fragrant strands. "Don't you ever, ever think that!" he repeated. Then he looked at her again, and he smiled. It was a weary smile, and she saw how much the past few years had aged him, and her heart ached.

  "He is a beautiful boy. He is the most wonderful child I've ever seen. And he is mine. Thank you. Thank you so very much."

  "Oh, Cole!" she whispered. She was dangerously close to tears. He saw it and his tone changed.

  "I'd still like to tan your hide for keeping the truth from me!"

  "Cole, I really didn't mean to. I was afraid. I'm always afraid, it seems."

  "I know, I know." He held her against him.

  "Cole, you must be starved. Let me go down and have Delilah —"

  "No, not now."

  "Cole, you must need —"

  He stepped away from her.

  "I need my wife," he said. "I very, very badly need my wife."

  He bent his head and kissed her, and then he lifted her into his arms and they fell upon the bed together.

  "We have a son, Kristin," he said, and she laughed. "We have a son, and he's beautiful, and… and so are you."

  It was a long, long time before either of them thought of any other kind of sustenance.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  The days that followed were glorious for Kristin. It wasn't that anything had been settled between them. It was just that for a time they seemed to have achieved a private peace, and it was wonderful.

  They did not stray far from the house. Cole explained how hard it had been to elude the patrols to reach her. But Kristin knew her own land, and she knew where they could safely travel. They picnicked on the banks of the river with the baby, and while he slept they splashed in the deliriously cool water. Kristin was first shocked and then ridiculously excited to dare to strip away her clothes in the broad daylight and make love in the water.

  In the evening they sat beneath the moon and felt the cool breezes play over them. Kristin listened while Cole and Samson talked about what was left of the herd, and it seemed that everything that was said began with the words "When the war is over…"

  At night, lying curled against her husband's body, Kristin asked him if he thought the war would ever end. He hesitated a long time, stroking her hair.

  "It's ending now, Kristin. We're being broken down bit by bit, like a beautiful animal chewed to bits by fleas. We never had the power. We never had the industry. We never had the men. It's going to end. If the Confederacy holds out another year I'll be surprised. Well, we went a long way on courage and tactics. But that Lincoln is a stubborn cuss. Tenacious. He's held on to his Union, so it seems."

  He sounded tired, but not bitter. Kristin stroked his chest. "Can't you just stay here now? If you know you're losing…"

  "I can't stay, Kristin. You know that."

  "I don't know anything of the kind! You've done your best for the Confederacy! You can't —"

  "Kristin, Kristin!" He caught her hands. "I'm an outlaw as long as the war is on. If I stay here, I'll be in terrible danger. If some glory-seeking commander hears about it, he might just waltz in and string me up. If I'm going to die, I'd rather it be fighting than dangling from the end of a rope!"

  "Cole, stop it —"

  "And it isn't over, Kristin. I'm in the game and I have to stay with it. If I don't go back, Malachi will come here and shoot me for a traitor."

  "He would not!"

  "Well, someone would," he said.

  "Cole —"

  "Kristin, I have to go back."

  "Cole —"

  He rolled over and swept her into his arms and kissed her and then looked into her eyes. "When I ride now, I will think of my son. Thank you for Gabe, Kristin. Thank you." He nuzzled her lips and kissed her forehead and her throat and the valley between her breasts. She tried to keep talking, to keep arguing, but he nuzzled his way down the length of her torso, and she grew breathless and couldn't speak. When he had finished she couldn't remember what she had wanted to say, only that it was terribly important that she hold him as long as she could.

  The next day Kristin was overjoyed when Matthew arrived unexpectedly. He quickly warned her that both he and Cole could be shot if they were caught together. Still, for a few hours, it was a wonderful homecoming. Matthew admired his nephew, and Shannon clung to her brother, and Delilah managed a fine feast. Then Cole and Matthew shut themselves up in the library together. Kristin finally had to force her way in.

  "You're discussing me, I know it, and I will know what is going on!" she insisted.

  "Cole has to leave," Matthew told her. "Right away. Tonight."

  "Why?"

  Matthew looked unhappily at Cole. Cole shrugged and gave her the explanation. "Matthew is putting the ranch under the protection of a Federal troop."

  "But —"

  "I can't be here, Kristin. And Quantrill's group has split up."

  "What?"

  "During the spring," Matthew explained, "Quantrill and his men got into some heavy feuding in Texas. Bill Anderson has some men under him, and George Todd has a group, too. Quantrill still has his followers. Bill attacked some Federals during the summer, and Archie Clements scalped the men he murdered. The situation is frightening, and no one knows where Zeke Moreau is, or who he's with. So you see, Kristin, Cole has to get out of here. And you have to be protected."

  Tears stung her eyes, and she gritted her teeth to keep from spilling them. She turned away from the men.

  "I fixed the tear in your frock coat, Cole. And Delilah has been washing everything. The two of you, sometimes your clothes smell as if you'd been sleeping with skunks for a year. I'll see that you're packed up and have Shannon wrap up a supply of jerky."

  She stumbled into the hallway. Cole found her there and swept her into his arms and took her upstairs to their room. She cried the whole time they made love, her tears spilling over his shoulders and his chest and dampening his cheeks.

  Then he kissed her and held the baby tightly. She insisted on coming down with him, and when he was mounted he leaned down to kiss her again. Holding their child close to her breast,

  Kristin waved as he left.

  That night some Union soldiers moved into the bunkhouse. Kristin supposed it was necessary. But it was still hard.

  The bushwhacker situation grew much worse. On the thirtieth of September Kristin was surprised when she came out on the porch to see that Major Emery was riding toward her. She stood and smiled, ready to greet him, but her smile died when she saw his face. She went pale herself, and the world spun, and she was afraid that she was going to faint.

  "Oh, my God, it's Cole —"

  "No, no, Mrs. Slater," he assured her hastily, taking Gabe from her. "He's a fine boy, ma'am. A fine boy." He looked around uncomfortably. "I don't think your sister should know the whole of this, ma'am, but… Captain Ellsworth is dead."

  "Oh, no!"

  "That damned Bill Anderson! Since his sister died they say he froths at the mouth every time he fights. Fights — bah!" He spat into the dirt. "He tore up Centralia. He made twenty-five unarmed soldiers strip, and then he shot twenty-three of them dead. The troops that w
ent out after him fared worse. It was a massacre. At least a hundred killed. Stripped, scalped, dismembered, their bodies mutilated as they died —"

  "Oh, God! Oh, God!"

  They both heard the scream. Kristin turned around to see that Shannon was standing in the doorway. She had heard every word. She knew.

  "Oh, God! No!" she shrieked. Major Emery took a step toward her, barely managing to catch her as she pitched forward in a dead faint.

  "Could you take her to her room for me, please?" Kristin whispered.

  Major Emery nodded and carried Shannon upstairs. "We've a company surgeon out in your bunkhouse. I'll send him over and see that he gives her something."

  The doctor didn't come soon enough. Shannon awoke, and she started to cry. She cried so hard that Kristin was afraid she would hurt herself. Then she was silent, and the silence was even worse. Kristin stayed with her, holding her hand, but she knew that she hadn't reached her sister, and she wondered if anyone ever would again.

  Fall came, and with it more tragedy for the South. General Sherman was marching to the sea through Georgia and the Carolinas, and the reports of his scorched-earth policy were chilling. In the west, the Union bottleneck was almost complete.

  On the twenty-first of October George Todd died when a sniper caught him in the neck. Five days later Bill Anderson was killed in the northwestern corner of Missouri.

  Kristin was alarmed to see how eagerly Shannon received the news of their deaths.

  Thanksgiving came and went. It was a very quiet affair. Kristin was Matthew McCahy's sister, but she was also Cole Slater's wife, and so it didn't seem right to invite any of the Union men in for a fancy supper.

  Matthew made it back for Christmas Day, and Kristin was delighted to see him. She asked if he had heard anything, and he told her that the last he had heard, Cole Slater was still at large. John Hunt Morgan, the dashing cavalry commander, had been killed late in the year, and Matthew hadn't heard anything about where Cole or Malachi or Jamie had been assigned.

  She cried that night, cried because no news was good news. It seemed so long since she had lost her father, and she could hardly remember Adam's face. She didn't want to lose anyone else. She could hardly stand to see Shannon's pale face anymore. She hadn't seen her sister smile since Captain Ellsworth had been killed. Not once.

  After Christmas dinner, Kristin sat before the fire in the parlor with her brother and her sister. She began to play a Christmas carol on the spinet, but Shannon broke down and ran upstairs to her room. Kristin sat staring silently at her hands for a long time.

  Finally Matthew spoke.

  "Kristin, nothing's going to get better, not for a long, long time, you know."

  "They say it's almost over. They say the war is almost over."

  "The war, but not the hatred. I doubt they'll fix that for a hundred years, Kristin. It isn't going to be easy. The healing will be slow and hard."

  "I know," Kristin whispered.

  "You just make sure, Kristin, that if Cole comes around you get him out of here fast. He isn't going to be safe anywhere near this place, not until some kind of a peace is made, and then only if amnesty is given."

  Kristin's fingers trembled. She nodded. "He won't come back. Not until… not until it's over."

  Matthew kissed her and went upstairs. Kristin stared at the fire until it had burned very low in the grate.

  In February Gabriel had his first birthday. The news that month was good for the Union, grim for the Confederacy. Sherman had devastated the South. Robert E. Lee was struggling in Virginia, and Jefferson Davis and the Confederate cabinet had abandoned Richmond half a dozen times.

  By March, everyone was talking about the campaign for Petersburg. Grant had been pounding away at the Virginia city since the previous summer, and the fighting had been fierce. The Union had tried to dig a tunnel under the Confederate lines. Mines had exploded, and many Confederates had been killed, but then they had rallied and shot down the Union soldiers who had filled in the crater. The soldiers shuddered when they spoke of it.

  Kristin had become accustomed to the men who had made their headquarters on her land. They were mostly farmers and ranchers, and more and more she heard them speak wistfully of the time when the war would be over, when they could go home. The Confederate general Kirby-Smith was still raising hell in the West, and the Southern forces were still fighting valiantly in the East, but the death throes had already set in for a nation that had never had a chance to truly breathe the air of independence. Major Emery came one day and sat with them on the porch while the first warmth of spring touched them. Morosely he told Kristin that the death estimates for the country were nearing the half-million mark. "Bullet, sword and disease!" He shook his head. "So many mothers' sons!"

  When he left her that afternoon, Kristin had no idea that she would never see him again alive.

  April came. General Lee's forces were gathering around Richmond for a desperate defense of the capital. Gabe was learning to walk, and Kristin had agreed with Samson and Pete that he might be allowed to try sitting on top of a horse.

  Kristin came outside one April afternoon, and she knew instantly that something was wrong. There was a peculiar stillness in the air.

  There should have been noise. There should have been laughter. The dozen or so Union troops billeted on the ranch should have been out and about, grooming their horses, hurrying here and there in their smart blue uniforms with their correspondence and their missives.

  Pete was nowhere in sight, and neither was Samson.

  "Samson?" Kristin called out.

  Then she heard the barn door creak as if the breeze had moved it, but there wasn't any breeze. She looked toward it, and she saw a hand. Its fingers were curled and crumpled, and it was attached to a bloodstained blue-clad arm. Kristin felt a scream rising in her throat, but she didn't dare release it. She wrenched Gabe into her arms and ran for the house as fast as she could.

  "Shannon!" she screamed. In the hall she found a gun belt with the two Colt six-shooters Cole had insisted she keep loaded and ready. With trembling fingers she wound the belt around her waist and reached for the Spencer repeating rifle Matthew had brought at Christmas.

  "Shannon!" she called again.

  Her sister came running down the steps, her eyes wide, her face pale.

  "Something is wrong. Take Gabe —"

  "No! Give me the rifle!"

  "Shannon, please —"

  "I'm a better shot than you are, damn it!"

  "Maybe, yes! But I'm not as desperate and reckless as you are!" Kristin snapped. "Shannon, for God's sake, you are the best shot! So for the love of God take Gabriel and get upstairs and try to pick them off if they come for me."

  "Who?"

  She didn't know how she could be certain, but she was.

  "Zeke is back. He's out there somewhere. Shannon, please, don't let them get my baby!"

  With that she pushed Gabriel into her sister's arms and started out the door again. Shannon watched her. Gabriel began to cry, and she pulled him close and hurried up the stairs.

  "Holy Mary!" Private Watson muttered. "Will you look at that? Fool Yankee, he's all alone and coming right at us!"

  Cole looked up from where he sat polishing the butt of his rifle. His eyes narrowed as he watched the trotting horse. Judging by the way the man riding it sat, he was injured, and injured pretty badly.

  "Should we shoot him?" someone murmured uncertainly.

  "Somebody already done shot him," came the wry answer.

  "Leave him be, boys," Cole said, rising curiously. Cole had been promoted to Colonel, which made him the highest-ranking officer in the group. Malachi was now a major and Jamie a captain. The three of them were with a small company of men simply because small companies were all that was left in their sector of the West. They had decided to find Kirby-Smith, wherever he was, and join forces with him, but for the last month they had kept a field headquarters in this abandoned farmhouse deep inside an overgrow
n orchard.

  "I know that man," Cole muttered suddenly. He hurried forward, his brothers and his ragged troops at his heels.

  He reached the horse, and the Yankee fell right into his arms. Cole eased him down to the ground, wresting his own scarf from around his neck to soak up the blood pouring from the wound beneath the man's shoulder blade.

  "Matthew McCahy, what the hell happened to you, boy?" he said gruffly. He looked at Captain Roger Turnbill, the company surgeon, and then he looked down at Matthew and wondered how the hell his brother-in-law had found him. Then he decided it didn't matter, not until Matthew was looked after.

  "Let's get inside the house," Captain Turnbill said.

  The men started to lift him. Matthew opened his eyes, huge blue eyes that reminded Cole painfully of his wife, so very close by, so endlessly far away. Matthew reached up and clutched the lapel of Cole's frock coat.

  "Cole, listen to me —"

  "You know this blue belly well, Colonel?" Captain Turnbill asked.

  "He's my wife's brother. I know him well enough."

  "Then let's get him inside. He's bleeding like a stuck pig."

  "Matthew —" Cole gripped the hand that clutched him so tightly. "Matthew, the captain is going to help you. I swear it." Cole wondered if Matthew was delirious, or if he was merely wary of the Confederate surgeon. Doctors on both sides had been known to boast that they had killed more of the enemy than all the artillery shells in the service.

  "Cole! For God's sake, listen to me!" Matthew rasped out. His fingers held Cole's like a vise. "It's Zeke —"

  "What?"

  Matthew swallowed painfully. "We met up with him southeast of here, in a little two-bit place called James Fork. We were a small detachment, thirty of us, heading over to Tennessee. I went down, I was knocked out and they took me for dead. I heard him talking over me. Said he couldn't wait to get to the McCahy place and tell Kristin McCahy that he'd managed to murder her brother now, too. They spent the night at James Fork. I waited till they were drunk and I found a horse, and here I am —"