So Wide the Sky Page 8

  "Papa, Papa!" she cried. "Sergeant Goodwin's letting me help him mix the bread!"

  The announcement was hardly necessary, and before Drew could stop her, Meggie had thrown herself against him. In one big hug, she had covered his crisp uniform blouse and dark blue trousers with a loaf's worth of flour.

  "Oh, Meggie!" Drew admonished her, scowling at the mess she'd made of him. Still, he bent and caught her up in his arms.

  "We already baked—" She skewed her face trying to remember. "How many loaves did we bake, Sergeant Goodwin?"

  "Eight dozen," the round-faced sergeant answered. "Ninety-six."

  "Did you know that there are twelve loaves in a dozen?" Meggie asked him.

  "As a matter of fact I did," Drew answered, swiping at a smudge of flour on Meggie's cheek.

  "And you know what else?"

  "I'm afraid I don't have time for guessing games, Meggie." Drew was already wondering how long it would take to get back to his cabin and brush the flour out of his uniform. With Sergeant O'Hearn laid up with his head wound, and his company one lieutenant shy of full strength, Drew was trying to keep a closer eye than usual on afternoon drill.

  "I brought someone by," he continued, "I want you to meet."

  Meggie reluctantly opened the scope of her regard to include the woman at his side, and he felt his daughter stiffen. Drew proceeded with the introductions anyway.

  "Meggie, this is Cassie Morgan. We have known each other since we were barely bigger than you. Cassie, this is my daughter Meggie."

  "Hello, Meggie," Cassie greeted her.

  Meggie simply stared.

  "What do you say, Meggie?" Drew prodded her, torn between the concern that Meggie was going to ignore Cassie's greeting completely or mention the Indian tattoo, "Hullo," the little girl finally murmured, and buried her face against his shoulder.

  "Since Laura died, Meggie hasn't taken much to strangers," he hastened to explain.

  "I think she's wonderful, Drew," Cassie answered, shifting around behind him to get a better look at his child. "She has your eyes."

  He supposed he'd hoped that Meggie would show some affinity for his old friend. Perhaps she would have if he'd been able to give Meggie and Cassie time to get acquainted, but time was a luxury he didn't have.

  "Thank Sergeant Goodwin for letting you help," he instructed his daughter. "And let me get that apron off."

  "We still got baking to do," Meggie protested.

  "It's time to go find Lila."

  The little girl stood with her hands propped on her hips and a mutinous expression on her face.

  "Lila will have finished her washing by now," Drew said as reasonably as he could. "Lila will take you home, give you something to eat, and read to you."

  "I don't want to take a nap," Meggie answered, not the least bit fooled by the euphemism.

  "Go along now, lass," Sergeant Goodwin offered, trying to help. "Somehow I'll manage to get this baking done without you."

  Meggie waited a moment longer before relenting. "I won't take a nap," she muttered, and turned her back so Drew could work the strings on her apron. He fumbled with the knots and then had the devil's own time fastening the row of velvet-covered buttons down the front of her coat.

  Meggie spent the time looking Cassandra up and down. He'd seen court-martial panels that looked less formidable.

  "Thank Sergeant Goodwin for letting you help him bake," Drew prodded his daughter a second time.

  "Thank you, Sergeant Goodwin," Meggie offered obediently. "I'll come back and help tomorrow."

  Drew cast the sergeant an appreciative glance as he ushered the two females toward the door.

  The weather had worsened outside, and they were all but blown toward the small hardscrabble encampment where the company laundresses lived. Every fort had a soapsuds row made up of tents or tiny makeshift cabins with cauldrons of wash water steaming out front and lines full of laundry radiating like spiders' webs across the back.

  The sound of hoofbeats, war whoops, and gunfire erupted behind them just as they reached the head of the row. Drew gave Cassie and Meggie a shove toward the nearest cabin and grabbed for his pistol.

  Three riders swooped past, headed for the clutch of ragtag tepees perpetually clustered to the west of the fort.

  Young bucks, Drew managed to reason through the blood drumming in his head. Friendlies liquored-up and looking for trouble.

  The concept of friendly Indians was not one Drew had managed to assimilate. Still, he knew that they were part of life here at the fort. This was how the bureaucrats back in Washington wanted their Indians—tamed, living near supply depots, dependent on the whites for clothes and food. It wouldn't further anyone's aims to shoot a friendly Indian by mistake.

  Though his heart continued to thump erratically, Drew eased the hammer down and holstered his pistol. He looked around for Meggie and Cassandra. They were scrambling to their feet a few yards away.

  "She knocked me down!" Meggie sputtered, outraged. "She made me get mud on my coat!"

  "It's all right, Meggie," Drew assured her.

  "Lila won't give me a star for inspection if I have mud on me!" she wailed, and burst into tears.

  Cassie came to her knees beside the child and began scrubbing at the spots with the tail of her shawl.

  Meggie yelled louder.

  The racket brought Lila Wilcox from her cabin near the middle of the row. She seemed to take in the situation at a glance. "Now, Miss Meggie, what's all this crying about?"

  There was no question that his daughter had a flare for the dramatic. Meggie related her tale of woe, complete with pitiful sniffles and reproachful looks in Cassie's direction.

  "Well, seeing as how it's not your fault, child," Lila said, coming to take the girl's hand, "I'll overlook the mud and brush it out myself once the spots are dry."

  Meggie drew a shuddery breath, as if she were only partially satisfied.

  Once the child had been quieted, Lila looked Cassandra up and down. Drew could see it wasn't a cursory inspection, either. Certainly Lila saw how the mud had soaked into the front of Cassie's skirt and the way the jostling had set her hat askew. Between that and the lock of hair that had worked loose of its pins, the tattoo on her cheek was clearly visible.

  "So you're the one," Lila murmured at last and turned her head, dismissing Cassie as if she were invisible.

  Drew couldn't allow an army laundress to snub a woman he was escorting, and cleared his throat. "Cassie, may I present Mrs. Lila Wilcox," he began in a voice that rang with command. "Lila has taken care of Meggie since we came to the fort."

  Cassie inclined her head.

  "And Lila, this is Miss Cassandra Morgan, lately of Kentucky."

  "And even more lately of the Cheyenne, the way I hear tell," Lila said under her breath.

  Drew glared, angry at Lila's outspokenness and then proud of how calmly Cassie met the older woman's gaze.

  "How do you do?"

  "'Bout as well as a body can expect," Lila answered, though a faint, dull flush had begun to creep into her cheeks.

  Confused by undercurrents he couldn't quite fathom, Drew went on. "I was just bringing Meggie over from the bake house."

  "You needn't have done that, Captain Reynolds. Old Goodwin and I had things worked out."

  "I thought I might just as well. I know you've been falling behind on your other duties."

  "And I do appreciate your help," Lila said almost begrudgingly. "But then, Meggie always enjoys spending time with her pa, even if it's only a few minutes he can spare in the middle of the day."

  Drew felt the sharp edge of Lila's tongue, but chose to ignore the sting.

  "Well, then," he answered. "If you and Meggie are set for the afternoon, why don't I see Miss Morgan back to the major's quarters?"

  "Why don't you do that?" Lila agreed. "Miss Meggie and I have a couple of special things we've been planning, don't we, pumpkin?"

  Meggie nodded and tugged Lila toward the tiny cabi
n on soapsuds row.

  "Good-bye, Meggie," Cassandra called after them. "Good-bye, Mrs. Wilcox."

  Both of them chose to ignore her.

  * * *

  "Poor little tyke!" Sally McGarrity sniffed as she and Cassandra made their way up toward the river and the bridge where the sutler kept his store. "I wish you could have seen Meggie when they arrived! Captain Reynolds kept her fed and clean enough, but he'd bundled her up—"

  "Bundled?" Cassie's understanding of English was growing quickly, but there were still words and phrases that puzzled her.

  "Wrapped her up," Sally explained, gesturing. "He made her wear every speck of clothing she owned. And Meggie wasn't talking—not a word. Not even to him."

  Cassie found it hard to believe that Meggie Reynolds had ever been silent.

  "She'd lost her mother, after all," Sally went on. "Barely four years old and left alone with only her father to tend her. Not that he didn't try. God knows, Drew Reynolds is a man who tries. But he didn't have any idea what that baby needed."

  Cass fumbled through the unfamiliar words in Sally's story and seemed to catch the drift of it.

  "Alma, Sylvie, and I took turns keeping Meggie while he got settled. We held her, petted her, and made her dresses. She was growing out of all her things, and Drew had no idea what to do about it. We played with her and fed her gingerbread."

  "Gingerbread," Cassie said, remembering.

  "We talked and talked to Meggie, and finally Meggie started answering back." Sally's mouth tilted in a smile. "And she hasn't stopped talking since."

  Cassie nodded, struggling to take everything in. "Drew said her mother—only died in—November."

  Sally scowled and huffed. "I daresay the captain barely knows that poor woman is gone except that she's left him with that child. Lila Wilcox has been a godsend. She's a rough-and-ready sort, but she's been good for Meggie.

  "Still," Sally went on, "that child needs more than Lila can give her. She needs love, and I just don't know if Captain Reynolds is the kind of man who can show affection."

  Cassie thought of how Drew had been when they were growing up in Kentucky. He'd loved to tease and joke. There had always been warmth in his eyes, and he treated people with an easy kindness that made them like him. She had seen the change in him this morning. He had pressed her to tell him about Julia, spoken sharply to the bakery sergeant and Lila Wilcox. He had been impatient to hand Meggie over to Mrs. Wilcox and to leave Cassie herself at the McGarritys' door. It was as if Drew were always somewhere else, focused on something far more important.

  She and Sally were just passing the cavalry stables when Alain Jalbert came by on his horse. Both women turned to watch him. Today Cass saw the warrior in him, the pride in the way he carried himself, the war club tied to the back of his saddle, the medicine bag on a thong around his neck. The man seemed to have taken it upon himself to protect her in this strange new place, and she was glad of it.

  "Another singular fellow, our Mr. Jalbert," Sally observed, and opened the door to the sutler's store before Cassie could ask what she meant.

  Cassie had been in trading posts before, though Gray Falcon had been careful about which ones. White captives were at a premium when it came to bartering with the army, and her Cheyenne husband had been too practical to let some enterprising trader make a profit selling Gray Falcon's wife back to the whites. Still, the smell of curing furs, gun oil, sizing, and spices was familiar. So was the dimness, relieved only by two lanterns hanging from the cabin's crossbeam and the glow from the alcove around back where three men sat gambling.

  Sally had invited Drew to come for supper, and she had insisted on going to the store to get some "delicacies." As Mrs. McGarrity went about her shopping, Cassie wandered around the room. Though she could see that the stock was low, probably because of the difficulty of winter travel, there were still all manner of goods Cassie had rarely seen in the posts that catered to the Indians. There were gleaming steel needles, spools of thread in rainbow colors, bolts of strong, high-quality cloth.

  A box of small, bright scissors caught her eye. Cunningly designed to resemble the cranes she'd seen fishing in the lakes up north, the scissors lay in a box at the edge of the counter beside trays of thimbles and tiny copper bells. She took a pair of scissors out of the box and slid her thumb and forefinger into the holes to test their weight. She worked the blades and saw that the bird's bill opened and closed as if he were singing. Cassie wanted the scissors almost more than she wanted to draw another breath.

  The traders who came to the villages and most of the trading posts she'd visited put out small goods for the Indians to steal. It was a sign of goodwill on the traders' part, a sign that they were willing to indulge the Indians' enjoyment of a little harmless pilfering in preparation for the hours of earnest trading that would follow. Usually the objects weren't as fine as this, or as expensive. But the scissors were out where anyone could finger them, not back on the shelves.

  Glancing up to see if the sutler was occupied, Cassie slipped her fingers from the holes in the handles of the tiny scissors and made as if to put them back. She palmed the scissors instead, and just as she was pocketing her prize, a big man in a sweat-stained shirt and battered hat loomed out of the shadows and grabbed her wrist. He dragged Cassie across the room to where the sutler and Sally McGarrity stood bargaining.

  "Hey, Jessup," he jeered, "you need to keep a closer eye on your inventory when there's In'juns about." The man's grip tightened, forcing Cass to open her fingers. "These scissors belong to you?"

  Sally McGarrity stared, taking in the scissors still tucked in Cassie's palm and the guilt she knew shone in her face.

  Sally's eyes widened. "Cassandra!" she murmured in horror.

  Cassie's flush sizzled all the way to her hairline.

  The sutler, Jessup, let his hard, black gaze slide over her, coming to rest on the tattoo that peeked from beneath her bonnet brim. His eyes lit at the sight of it.

  "Don't you make no mistake, girl," he told her. "This here's a respectable sutler's store, not some redskin trading post. We don't put things out for squaws to steal."

  New humiliation burned in Cassie's cheeks. She couldn't think how to defend herself.

  Instead Sally McGarrity spoke up for her. "It's a natural mistake for her to make if that's how things are done at the Indians' trading posts. Put the scissors—and all the rest of this—on my husband's account."

  Cassie stood nailed to the spot while Jessup packed up the scissors and Sally McGarrity's purchases. She knew she should apologize, though the thought of speaking one word to the man behind the counter made her skin crawl. She would address herself to Sally once they got outside. But even when they reached the street, Cassandra's tongue seemed glued to the roof of her mouth.

  They had walked a fair distance in the direction of the major's quarters before Sally spoke. "There are bound to be things that are different here from what you've grown used to," she began, "but we whites do not lie and we do not steal."

  Cass hadn't seen that that was true when it came to the white men's treaties and Indian land, but she held her peace.

  "If you're going to live among us," Sally went on, "you're going to have to learn to abide by certain rules."

  Were they rules she had learned as a child and now forgotten? Cassie wondered. Or rules that had only come to apply because she'd been living as an Indian?

  "I'm sorry, Mrs. McGarrity," Cassie said, finally finding her voice. "Nothing like—this—will ever—happen again."

  "See that it doesn't, Cassandra," the older woman answered, and forged ahead.

  * * *

  "In the end that sly old horse threw the general," Drew said, grinning as he came to the end of his story. "And if horses could laugh, that one would have."

  Cassie chuckled and stole another glance at the man who occupied the opposite end of the settee. This was the Drew Reynolds she remembered. He was charming and wry and affable. Tonight he had been an ide
al dinner companion, arriving at the stroke of six o'clock with a tin of toffee for Sally McGarrity and a coil of ribbons for her.

  The meal had gone well. With the help of the major's striker, Sally had put together a dinner of quail with peach and brandy sauce, roasted potatoes, some sort of desiccated green vegetable, and muffins served with the raspberry jam Sally had bought at the sutler's store.

  If Drew had heard about the incident this afternoon, he gave no sign of it. Cassie's cheeks burned just thinking what he would say about her thievery. From this day on, she vowed, she wouldn't take so much as berries from a bramble bush.

  When she turned her attention back to Drew and Major McGarrity, they were still telling soldier stories. Cassandra had heard Cheyenne warriors do the same, sitting around the campfire until the moon had set. In those tales the Cheyenne seemed to venerate daring, to honor bravery in battle. These white soldiers spoke with humor and derision about their leaders and their own experiences. Or perhaps these white soldiers didn't tell tales of their bold and bloody deeds to impress the women, as the Cheyenne did.

  As they sat in the quiet parlor finishing up the dishes of dried-apple cobbler with condensed milk, Cassandra unabashedly studied Drew. She recognized the confidence of the boy she'd known in the surety of the man Drew had become. She saw how the softness and vulnerability in his features had hardened with time and experience. Yet as the two men talked of what Cassandra was beginning to understand had been a long and brutal war, there were no shadows in Drew's eyes.

  This morning when they spoke about the attack on their families' wagons, Cassie had watched those pewter gray eyes go dark with anguish and bitterness and grief. She knew without him telling her that surviving the massacre had affected Drew far more profoundly than anything that had happened since. He might be able to spin out tales of the Civil War, but she knew he would never voluntarily speak of what had befallen their families.

  "I heard the old man was a tyrant," the major was saying about one of the officers when Cassandra picked up the thread of their conversation, "I'm just glad I never served under him."