The Scout's Bride

“He partook rather liberally of Mr. Bellamy’s flask.”

“Mr. Bellamy? Ah, Injun Jack.” Doc nodded in comprehension. “Sergeant Unger told me you had taken him on.” He regarded her, uncertain how to broach the subject. “He didn’t…er… harm you?”

Her face colored tellingly. “I’m fine, thank you. And so is he, though he did his arm no good when we fell.”

“How badly is he injured? I’d as soon face an angry bear than rouse Injun Jack.”

“He’ll be fine until morning. The arrow passed through his arm and there’s no sign of blood poisoning. I cleaned the wound thoroughly before he passed out—-”

“From pain?”

“From whiskey.”

The physician laughed aloud at her rueful expression. “Pain, exhaustion and good bourbon make a mighty potent sedative. This is probably the first sleep he’s had in days.

“You’ve done a fine job, my dear,” he complimented her. “Call if Private Greeley awakens in pain. We’ll make do with laudanum since there’s no more morphine and no supply wagons within a hundred miles. I’ll be glad when the railroad finally reaches Chamberlain.

“Sure I can’t talk you into going home?” he asked, preparing to leave her. “I can get one of the nurses to walk with you.

“Very well,” he said when she shook her head. “Keep pouring water down our young friend. If his fever continues past midnight, dose him with more quinine and rub him with alcohol to cool him. I’ll be close by if you need me.”

“Doc—” she stopped him impulsively “—do you know who Joe is? Mr. Bellamy has been muttering about him.”

“Old Jo—that’s his horse,” he replied with a chuckle, “named after his old commander, General Shelby. If he wakes up, tell him I had the ornery animal taken to the stables.”

“Mr. Bellamy was a soldier?” Rebecca stared skeptically at the shaggy man. He snored through her scrutiny.

“A major in the Iron Brigade of the West, one of the finest in the Confederate Cavalry.” Perched on a footlocker, Doc drew on an endless supply of post gossip. “He doesn’t talk much about himself, but I understand he comes from a fine old family.”

“An officer and a gentleman,” she murmured sadly. “You would never know now. What do you suppose happened?”

“The war.” The physician shrugged.

“The war changed a lot of things,” she murmured. “So Major Bellamy came west.”

“I understand he has lived among the Indians for the past few years. He’s an expert tracker and the best interpreter on the plains. The army’s only complaint is that he’d rather talk to hostiles than fight them. Says he’s had a bellyful of killing.”

“He has an odd way of showing it,” she scoffed. “He pulled a knife on Privates Westfield and Farina this afternoon.”

Getting to his feet, Doc grinned. “Did he hurt them?”

“No.” Rebecca could not help but return his smile. “But they nearly hurt themselves trying to get away.”

“Thus the legend of fearsome Injun Jack grows.” His dark eyes twinkling in amusement, the physician departed.

Rebecca settled in, shifting in her seat, searching for a comfortable position. A crackle of paper reminded her of the letter in her apron pocket. She had been busy when the courier brought it.

Pulling out the envelope, she inspected it in the dim light. Wrinkled and water-stained, its postmark was more than a month old. Judging by the scrawled address, her stepbrother’s wrath had still been at fever pitch when he had written it.

But Lyle was usually angry. Cold, unremitting fury seemed to be a Hope family trait. Rebecca had been seven years old when her widowed mother had married Lyle’s father, Caleb.

Dour and acrimonious, Caleb had had little regard for anyone or anything. He’d blamed everyone but himself for his misfortunes. When her mother died, he had considered his stepdaughter an unpaid servant, a housekeeper or a field hand, depending on the season. He treated his own son little better. He wore out his land, sapping its fertility, and died on the brink of ruin, cursing God.

Lyle was his father’s son. For years, Rebecca had dodged his fists when cold anger gave way to white-hot temper. Not every man would give his spinster sister a home, he had told her as she cooked and cleaned and helped him hold onto his rocky inheritance. She hadn’t believed his self-righteous mouthings, but they had worn on her, almost as much as his constant criticism.

Nothing had pleased him. When times were hard, she worked in the fields beside him, but when crops failed and bills came due, he begrudged even the food she ate…until Paul Emerson proposed.

Sweet, kind Paul, her childhood friend, had returned from the war a confident, soft-spoken man; a captain in the U.S. Cavalry. And he had wanted Rebecca as his wife.

Her stepbrother had been livid to think she would desert him, her only family. He forbade her to see her suitor, threatening to lock her in her room. In the end, his harshness drove her away.

Though Rebecca was fond of Paul, she had not loved him. She had promised herself she would learn. It would not be difficult. He was a good man and she would make him a good wife.

She had tried, though there had been little time. No sooner had they arrived at windswept Fort Chamberlain, one of a string of forts across the frontier, than Paul had been assigned to lead a series of patrols. While her bridegroom came and went, the new Mrs. Captain Emerson endeavored to make a home for them. Surrounded by determinedly genteel officers’ ladies, she strove to become the perfect wife, the wife Paul deserved.

During an expedition to Fort Wallace, where cholera raged, he contracted the disease. He was quarantined upon his return to Fort Chamberlain. Rebecca had stayed by his side to the end. In a matter of days, she found herself alone among strangers, her marriage over almost before it had begun.

“Water, please, water.” The hoarse plea penetrated her memories. Stuffing the envelope into her pocket, she looked around. Across the aisle, Doc rose from a chair in the shadows to tend the recent amputee.

Both of Rebecca’s charges slept. Teddy felt warm, but it was too early for more quinine. Poised to place her hand on Injun Jack’s forehead, she snatched it back when he grunted without opening his eyes, “Leave me alone.”

“I’ll leave you alone,” she muttered under her breath, “till the cows come home.”

Fuming, she went to the window and stared out. From the dark parade ground came the comforting sounds that had already become the rhythm of her life.

The buglers’ call to Tattoo heralded the sound of voices as the men assembled for roll call amid flickering lanterns. The officers on duty emerged from their houses on the Row and went to the flagstaff where the nightly reports would be made. Soon Taps would sound on the night wind, lights would fade from windows and Fort Chamberlain would sleep.

Returning to her chair, Rebecca opened Lyle’s letter. As she expected, it was filled with recriminations. Faced with imminent failure, he ordered his stepsister to come home and bring Paul. The soldier boy would find plenty to keep him busy on the farm, he insisted, instead of gallivanting around the West, chasing Indians.

He closed his scribbled diatribe by reminding Rebecca that she owed him a debt of loyalty. He also requested money, neglecting to thank her or even to mention her savings that she had left for him.

She did not know whether to laugh or cry. She had no money. Paul had left her twenty-seven dollars in greenbacks, a small pension, and a large bill with the army trader. She had dismissed the striker, the soldier he had hired as a servant, and returned unused luxuries to the trading post, but her pride would not allow her to make her dilemma known. No one knew but Mr. Peeples, the trader; Colonel Quiller, the post commander; and her friend Flora.

Closing her eyes, the widow tried to recalculate her meager finances as she had so many times in the past month. The numbers were chased from her head when Teddy thrashed in his bed.

Discovering he burned with fever, she forced water and more quinine down his unwilling throat. She bathed him and talked to him softly through the long night. When his fever broke a little before dawn, Doc appeared, eyes bloodshot and chin unshaven, to help her change the perspiration-soaked linens.

“He should sleep now,” he told her when her patient rested quietly. “Let me get my jacket and I’ll walk you home.”

The first hint of dawn lit the sky when they emerged from the hospital to stand for a moment, overlooking the parade ground. Encircled by a wide, hard-packed dirt road, the quadrangle was the center of life at Fort Chamberlain, bordered on the east by barracks and headquarters buildings and on the west by Officers’ Row, the hospital and the main gate. At opposite ends of the grassy expanse, the post’s only trees jutted up unexpectedly on the flat plain: a tamarack that overshadowed the hospital porch and a cottonwood near Suds Row, the laundresses’ quarters.

Rebecca breathed the morning freshness, savoring the quiet. Soon the fort would be clamorously awake and bustling. Though the wind had died, the air was chilly. In the stillness, the only sound was the croaking of the frogs in the river behind Suds Row.

“Your help was invaluable as usual, Rebecca,” the contract surgeon said as they walked to her quarters on Officers’ Row, “but I wish you would not work so hard.”

“I don’t mind. It gives me something to do with my time.”

He shook his gray head sadly. “Every time I look at you, my girl, I wish things could have been different. You deserve to be happy.”