The Baron Brand Page 6

  “From what I hear soldiers don’t get paid much.”

  “That’s true,” she said. “There was a lot of talk at Fort Worth about war when I left.”

  “War?”

  “If President Lincoln frees the slaves. The Southerners say they will leave the Union, form a new country.”

  “That’s nonsense,” David said.

  “Maybe, but there are some soldiers ready to desert the Union and join the Southern forces if there is secession.”

  David rubbed his forehead. “I hadn’t thought about slavery much. Have you?”

  “I think it should be abolished.”

  “It would be an economic disaster to the South.”

  “Do you hold with keeping slaves, David?”

  “Not personally. But I’ve met some slaveholders. They treat their slaves kindly.”

  “But a man owning another …”

  “It doesn’t sound right, you put it that way, Ursula.”

  “No, it doesn’t. Jack, my husband, he hated slavery. Roy does too, I think.”

  “Well, I doubt if Lincoln would go so far as to grant full freedom to slaves bought and paid for.”

  “Well, he’s a Yankee, isn’t he?”

  “That’s just a term. He’s our president.”

  “I think it would be just terrible if the Union split up. If it came to war, it would be even worse.”

  “Slavery’s not worth fighting for,” David said. “I doubt if it would come to that if Lincoln does free the slaves.”

  “That’s not what the soldiers at Fort Worth think.”

  “Well,” David said, with a shrug, “soldiers are always looking for a fight, aren’t they?”

  Ursula did not laugh. She arose from her chair and brought the coffeepot from the stove. She poured their cups full and returned the pot to a cool place on the stove.

  David cleared his throat during the awkward silence that had clouded up between them. Ursula sat back down, picked up her cup and blew on the surface of the hot coffee.

  “I hope I haven’t said something wrong,” David said.

  “No. You may be right. I am not so sure. I would hate it dreadfully if Roy had to choose sides and fight in a war here in Texas.”

  “I pray he does not, Ursula. He seems a fine young man.”

  “I tried to teach him right from wrong while he was growing up.”

  “I’m sure he’ll make you proud someday,” David said, relieved to be on safer ground.

  “He already does,” she said.

  David smiled. Ursula was proud of her son. All he had to do was show her that he liked Roy and she would warm to him. He drank the fresh coffee with relish now that he had the woman all figured out in his mind. All he had to do was avoid talk of war and slavery and concentrate on praising her son. Ursula was a fine-looking widow woman and she seemed to like him. He was glad he had walked over from the field to call on her.

  David was smiling warmly to himself when Ursula surprised him.

  “Which side would you fight on if it came to a war between the Yankees and the Southerners?” Ursula asked.

  David choked on his coffee and spluttered droplets all over his shirt and the table as Ursula scooted her chair away. He gasped for breath and set his cup down, then tried to clean up his mess, frantically searching for the correct answer to Ursula’s question.

  “Never mind,” she said, “I’ll clean that up. Are you all right?”

  “Yes’m,” David said, hoping she would have forgotten what she had asked him. “I’m fine. Coffee just went down the wrong pipe, that’s all.”

  “Maybe my question upset you,” she said.

  “No’m, I just … I mean, I didn’t … wasn’t … well, it just surprised me is all.”

  “And?”

  David aligned his shoulders and sat straight in his chair.

  Ursula looked at him, a querulous expression on her face.

  “I guess I’d fight on whichever side wanted me to,” he said. “Well, I mean, since I live in Texas I’d fight with the Texans.”

  Ursula smiled and lifted her cup to her lips.

  “Me, too,” she said, after a moment.

  David looked at her, a feeling of respect building in his mind. Ursula wasn’t at all what he had expected. She was a strong woman with a mind of her own. He would have to be careful, he thought. She was the kind of woman who could eat a man alive. She could be dangerous, he felt, and he was intrigued by her. He sensed the ferocity in her heart, the fearlessness of a tigress beating in her chest, uplifting those proud breasts of hers.

  The danger she promised made her all the more desirable to him. He wanted to hold her and subdue her at that moment, but he knew that this was not the time. Thinking of it summoned up little tremors inside him. He wondered if he could lift his coffee cup up again without showing his desire with hands that threatened to tremble as he gazed at her across the table.

  He cleared his throat. “Perhaps I’d better be going,” he said. “It’s a long ride both ways and I don’t want to be late picking you up.”

  “Finish your coffee,” she said as she dabbed at the spillage with one of the napkins. “You mustn’t rush off when we’re having such a delightful conversation.”

  “No’m,” he said, and picked up his cup. His hands were steady. He drank slowly, hoping she would not surprise him again.

  “You’re not afraid of me, are you?” she asked bluntly.

  “No, no, of course not,” David said quickly while admiring Ursula’s perception.

  The truth of it was that he was afraid of her at that moment. Afraid of losing her before he had even known her, and afraid of her overwhelming womanness. It was something he was not used to and didn’t know if he could handle. Ursula was no spring chicken. She was a full-blown woman and he could almost feel the heat of her across the table. He felt a stirring in his loins that told him positively of the power this woman already had over him.

  Yes, he thought, she was dangerous, and he wanted her very much. He pulled one of the napkins from the table and set it on his lap in a wad.

  “That won’t help,” Ursula said, husky throated. “I’ve already seen what I do to you, David.”

  David swallowed, unable to speak. He felt his face flush hot and cursed himself for allowing his emotions such free rein.

  “It’s all right,” Ursula said, a patronizing tone to her voice. “I’ve seen such things before.”

  And then she smiled knowingly at him and David felt her heat melting him and the napkin rose in his lap like some ragged, unkempt tent on a scorching plain.

  “My, my,” she said. “I had no idea you were so impetuous, Dave.”

  “Ma’am, I—I’m not, I mean, I couldn’t help …”

  “Now, don’t apologize. I’m flattered. I just didn’t know I had such an effect on a feller, that’s all.”

  “Yes’m. I mean, no’m, I mean, it’s not you—”

  “Not me, Dave? Were you thinking of someone else?”

  David blushed and his collar seemed to tighten around his neck. He felt as if he were digging himself a deeper hole every time he opened his mouth. And, it was embarrassing to have her notice his ardor this way.

  “No’m, I wasn’t thinking of anything.”

  “Then, your little man must have a mind of his own,” Ursula said.

  “What?”

  Ursula came over to him, knelt by his side. She touched his neck lightly with her fingertips. The hairs on the back of his head bristled as if electrified.

  Ursula didn’t answer. Instead, she rubbed his neck with soothing delicacy and his arousal became more apparent despite his trying to will his manhood to soften and shrink back to a harmless glob of flesh.

  “I think you’re a very sweet man, Dave. But I don’t want to make you uncomfortable.”

  “No’m.”

  Ursula broke off contact with David and stood up with an abruptness that surprised him. He looked up at her. She was looking down at his lap a
nd smiling.

  “It’s nice to know that a woman my age can still interest a man.”

  “Oh, yes’m, you’re not old. In your prime, I’d say.”

  Ursula fluffed the back of her hair and walked back to her chair. She stood there for a moment, gazing wistfully out the window. David crossed his legs, recrossed them.

  “I don’t feel old,” she said. “But I am a widowed woman, after all.”

  “Yes’m. I’m sorry about that.”

  “Sorry that I’m a widow?”

  “Sorry that you lost your husband, I mean.” David began to breathe easier.

  “I hope you don’t think I’m looking for a man, Dave.”

  “No’m. I mean, I just think you’re nice and I’d like to get to know you better.”

  “We’ll see, David, we’ll see. Perhaps you should leave now and pick me up later. We’ll go to town.”

  David got up, feeling much better. He set his coffee cup on the table, smoothed the front of his trousers. “Yes, I—I look forward to that, Ursula. I’ll hurry on home and change clothes.”

  Ursula turned and looked at him. He could feel the heat from her eyes, the radiance she projected with the rapturous expression on her face. She looked almost beatific, but there was something else, too, the look of a wanton. Her breasts seemed to have swelled, making her even more desirable, and he thought of how close she had been to him, how very close and he could still feel her finger touching his neck, burning into his flesh, leaving an invisible mark that he knew must be there, indelible, permanent.

  “I look forward to seeing you at eight o’clock,” Ursula said, starting toward the front door.

  “I won’t be late, ma’am.”

  She opened the door, held it for him as he approached. As he was leaving, her hand touched his arm. He felt it burn through his skin as if she had dipped her hand in fire.

  “I’ll be ready,” she said, and stepped back so that he could pass. He stumbled outside, feeling foolish and not a little bewildered.

  “Good-bye, Ursula,” he said, tossing her a wave.

  “Good-bye, Dave.”

  He walked around the house quickly, wanting to be out of her sight so that he could breathe, could think. When he was well past the house and headed for his camp, he began to relax, suddenly realizing that he had been wound up like a watch spring.

  Nothing had happened, he told himself, yet something had happened. He could feel Ursula’s closeness even now, could feel how close she had come to him and how much he had wanted her. Yet, she had done nothing remonstrable, nothing bad. In fact, he decided, she had done nothing at all.

  But it felt as if she had done something. And, worse, it felt as if he had done something, something shameful, perhaps. But what? Now he wondered if he had not imagined her nearness, the way she had looked at him, the effect she had on him. He wiped his forehead. His face was bathed in sweat and he could hear his pulse racing in his ears.

  Ursula, he thought, was surely a most dangerous woman. An exciting woman. He wondered what the evening would bring. His pulse raced even faster at the thought and he tried to scrub his mind of such sinful thoughts.

  But, he wanted Ursula. The idea that she was a widow excited him, too. There was something wicked about a widow woman he believed. As a boy, the widow in the town was a subject of great mystery. And Ursula was a most mysterious woman. Of that he was certain. A very mysterious and exciting and desirable woman.

  He skipped lightly the rest of the way to his camp, feeling like a young boy who had just seen a pretty girl smile at him.

  8

  PEEBO STAGGERED AWAY from the smoke, gasping and choking. Anson slapped at sparks attached to his trousers and beat at those mired in his hair. He held his breath and followed Peebo away from the flames, stomping at patches of fire curdling the grass under his feet.

  When they were clear of the smoke and rasping flames, Peebo and Anson kicked their smoldering boots into the dirt to put out the sparks, wiped their blackened faces and drew in lungfuls of clean sweet air.

  “Them sonsofbitches,” Peebo muttered.

  “Tricky bastards. Caught us with our pants down.” Anson gingerly touched his singed eyebrows, flaking off small motes of fried hair that fell to the earth like the husks of tiny dead flies.

  The two men stood and watched the flimsy jacal blaze like a torch. The roof was a sheet of flame before disappearing in a puff of smoke, then the walls became engulfed in lashing tongues of fire that quickly consumed every square inch of fuel right before their eyes. The heat from the conflagration drove the two men further away from the dwelling. A thin and ragged column of smoke rose in the sky, twisting upward on invisible currents of air until the top fanned out and left a smoky pall that stretched for a hundred yards before the breeze nibbled at its edges and twisted it out of shape until it resembled a torn and tattered shroud.

  Anson muttered a low curse, kicked at a dirt clod with the disconsolate air of one who has lost everything in the world. His mouth sagged into a surly frown and he blinked his fire-seared eyes as if fighting back tears.

  “Damned sonsofbitches,” Anson said aloud.

  “Them Apaches done boogered us for fair,” Peebo said, his blond bangs plastered against his sweaty forehead, his hat miraculously still stuck to the back of his head, the dirt on it sooted over as if huge thumbprints had left their indelible marks on brim and crown. “I’d like to skin each one of ’em with a paring knife.”

  “Well, they took all your horses, Peebo, and mine, too. It’s a damned long walk to La Loma de Sombra.”

  “Where’s that?”

  “The house at the main ranch.”

  “How far?”

  “Hell, I don’t know. Thirty miles. Forty.”

  Peebo laughed drily, started walking a circle around the burning jacal, looking at the ground.

  “Whatcha doin’, Peebo?” Anson asked.

  “Seein’ if I can find our canteens.”

  “Hell, they burnt up.”

  “Maybe not. Mine was nigh full of water. What about yours?”

  “Hell, I don’t know. Don’t even know where I left it. Might still be on my horse.”

  “I took mine off to keep it in the cool,” Peebo said.

  The blaze was yet too hot for Peebo to walk close to the jacal, but he peered hard into the inferno to see if he could spot his canteen. When he had completed a full circle, he shook his head and ambled back over to where Anson still stood, watching in fascination the fire consume everything in its rabid grasp.

  “Shit,” Peebo said.

  “No canteen?”

  “Oh, it’s in there, somewhere. I can find it easy.”

  “How?”

  “Just listen for the sound of boiling water,” Peebo said, a grin magically risen on his face as if it had been there all the time and by some unknown power had flashed into being like a sudden sunrise.

  “Yeah, sure,” Anson said. “Well, we can’t wait around here to see if your goddamned canteen’s boiling.”

  “Oh, it’s boiling all right. If I get to it before it all evaporates into steam, we’ll have us some water to carry us on our journey.”

  “Back to La Loma.”

  “Hell no.”

  “What do you mean ‘hell no?’”

  “I mean to get my steeds back.”

  “How?” Anson asked. That interminable grin was still plastered to Peebo’s face line a swatch of barn paint. “We’re afoot, or didn’t you notice?”

  Peebo’s nose wrinkled up and he made a face, squint eyed and all. The grin was twisted some, but it was still there, teeth bared to the raw gums of the man.

  “Anson, did you ever walk down a man on horseback?”

  “No. And didn’t nobody else neither.”

  “That’s where you’re wrong, pilgrim. I done it.”

  “When?”

  “When a Comanche stole a horse of mine. He come in on foot just to get him a free ride and got away before I could throw down on
him.”

  “And you walked him down?”

  “I sure as hell did, son. Slick as grease on shit. He liked to rode that horse into the ground a-tryin’ to get away from me and I just kept on a-goin’ and kept on until he run out of horse and time.”

  Anson shook his head in mock disbelief. He was almost sure that Peebo wasn’t lying, but he thought he might be stretching a story beyond its regular boundaries. He tried to picture it in his mind, Peebo walking after a lone Comanche warrior on horseback. It was common knowledge that Comanches and horses were one and the same. They were like those centaurs his pa had told him about when he read him old stories out of a book he had kept at sea. Half man, half horse, a Comanche was, and scrawny little Peebo with his bow legs and bandy feet wasn’t going to walk down any such critter.

  “The horse must have been lame,” Anson said.

  “Sound as a twenty-dollar gold piece.”

  “Sheeeit, Peebo.”

  “Shit, my ass. A man can walk farther than a horse any day. Might not be able to outrun him, but a horse is packing a lot of weight, and he needs grass and water to keep going. A man can fill his belly with water and just keep going with not so much as a hardtack biscuit to waller in his mouth.”

  “I’d damn sure have to see that, Peebo.”

  “And, by the gods, you will, me bucko.”

  “Well, walkin’ down one Comanche ain’t the same as takin’ after a passle of Apaches.”

  “One or a dozen, we can do it.”

  “We’d be outnumbered if we do catch up to Culebra and his bunch.”

  Peebo laughed and pointed a finger at a spot just above his right temple. “Not here, we ain’t, Anson. We’ve got powder and ball. They’ve got arrows and spears. You leave it to me. We’ll get those horses back.”

  Anson heaved a sigh as he looked askance at the grinning Peebo. “You’re crazy,” he said.

  Peebo laughed. Then, he began walking around the smoking rubble of the jacal, kicking aside burning faggots that might conceal a canteen. Something caught his eye and he ran through the cinders and snatched something from a heap and kept on running as tiny flames licked at his boots.

  “Find it?” Anson asked.

  Peebo flung the object five feet through the air and skidded it across bare ground. Sparks flew from the canteen’s edges, but Anson could hear the water slosh inside it.