The Pride of Hannah Wade Read online

  He was an officer, but he didn’t fit in with them; Jake Cutter was a soldier, but he didn’t belong in the ranks. At thirty-two, he was an outsider to both, and the years in between had calloused him with a hard self-sufficiency. So when he looked at the proud major’s wife, she represented a class and lifestyle he didn’t seek—the formal soirees and teas, the petty post intrigues and politics, and all their accompanying emptiness and greedy ambitions.

  “Tell me, Captain Cutter”—the scented lace was lowered and smoothed by her slender white hands— “how did you know those Apaches intended us no harm when they rode in? You didn’t even put a hand to your pistol.”

  Her observation produced a brief flicker of admiration in him. “A collection of things, but most notably their clothes,” he answered, smiling as he held the cigar in his hand. “Only one of them was stripped to ... his native gear; the rest were fully dressed. Nah-tay, the Apache scout at the fort, told me it’s bad to wear clothes when fighting. If you’re shot, a piece of material can get inside the wound and cause an infection. Don’t ever underestimate the natural intelligence of an Apache, Mrs. Wade.” He shifted to survey the clearing with its scatter of adobe huts. “Perhaps you should join the other ladies and finish your shopping. It might he best if we don’t linger here too long.”

  A small question flared in the brown wells of her eyes, but she was too well-trained a military wife to ask it. Army discipline dictated that one accept orders without questioning the reasons for them.

  “Of course, Captain.” The long folds of her skirt made a swishing sound as she turned to rejoin her companions.

  His gaze lingered on the gentle slope of her shoulders and the fashionably nipped-in waist of the black-and-green-striped dress top. A beautiful woman. Then his thoughts moved on to more pressing matters as he left the shade of the brush arbor and crossed to the army ambulance.

  The driver, a tall, leanly muscled black sergeant named John T. Hooker, stood by the four hitch of long-eared mules. Sergeants were the officers’ communication links to their troops; all orders were funneled through them. John T. Hooker was A Company’s top sergeant. He’d served under Cutter during those long border years in Texas and had earned the chevrons on his sleeve through skill, courage, and intelligence. Unlike most of the black troops, where literacy was a problem, Hooker could read and write. He was officer material, but Cutter knew no black trooper would rise above a noncommissioned rank in this white man’s army.

  “Came outta nowhere, didn’t they?” Hooker studied the brush.

  “They usually do—if you’re going to see them at all,” Cutter replied.

  “Think they’ll be waitin’ for us?” Hooker wondered. The two accompanying troopers stayed by the military ambulance where their horses were tied, standing at ease now that the threat was gone, yet remaining watchful and alert.

  “They stopped here for one of two reasons— ammunition or supplies.” A mule stamped its foot at a fly, its brace chains rattling. “Let’s hope it was ammunition. They’ll be less likely to waste what they’ve got left on us.” A humorless smile lifted the corners of his mouth.

  “That was a raidin’ party on their way to Mexico, and I’d bet my stripes on it,” the sergeant declared, perspiration from the desert heat giving a sheen to his brown-black skin and accenting his strong cheekbones and jaw.

  “I don’t think you’d lose.” With an idle slap on the curried-slick neck of a mule, Cutter turned to bring the women into his view. They were still outside poking through the odds and ends stacked under the ramada, nicknamed the “squaw cooler” by some whites, in search of some house trinket.

  The owner of the store emerged from the adobe building, a potbellied white man with a bushy mustache and long, flowing sideburns, slovenly dressed in baggy pants secured by dark suspenders over the faded red of his long johns. He was one of the early settlers of the area, drawn by the stories of Apache gold and then held by the money, to be made selling supplies to miners, soldiers, and Apaches. Long ago he’d married a squaw from one of the Mimbres bands so he could have a foot in both camps, the white man’s and the red. But he was never fully accepted in either; whites looked askance at a squaw man, and the Apache never forgot the white man’s greed.

  “’Lo, Captain.” The locals called him “Apache Jack” Reynolds. As he approached Cutter, he showed a measure of discomfort, a nervous tic twitching the skin along the corner of his upper lip. “Sorry about that little incident. Hope it didn’t scare the ladies much. They were just some of my wi—Little Dove’s relatives come to visit.” He checked the impulse to identify the heavy, plodding Apache woman as his wife, craving the respectability of his own kind and deprived of it by their prejudices against his copper-skinned wife, no longer the maiden he’d once desired. “They’re comin’ back, like most of their kind, they get nervous when the army’s around.” He laughed, weakly trying to make a joke out of it while explaining the parting comment in case Cutter understood Spanish.

  “Relatives.” Cutter somehow doubted that. “I thought I recognized Juh. Who was the one that called to you?”

  Beads of sweat broke out across the trader’s forehead. He couldn’t be sure whether the question was a trap and Cutter already knew the warrior’s identity. He mopped his brow with a soiled bandanna and tried to hide his unease.

  “Lutero.” It was a tight, forced smile he offered with the name; then, in defense, he added, “You know how tangled these Apache relations get sometimes. I mean, even Cochise was related to Mangas Coloradas and that war shaman Geronimo.”

  Lutero. Cutter matched the name to the scar-cheeked image in his mind and filed it away. Such pieces of information were maybe important and maybe not. But it might be worth remembering that he had seen an Apache, believed to be Juh, in the area with a handful of warriors, among them a brave called Lutero. Maybe a raiding party? Blood always ran fast in the spring. It had been bold of them to show themselves to Cutter and the escorting troopers. There was no doubt in his mind that their little group had been thorougly scouted before Juh and his band had ridden in.

  “Is there anything I can do for you, Captain?” The inquiry had an edge to it; the questioning had put Apache Jack on the defensive and turned him slightly belligerent.

  A mule snorted, ridding its nostrils of accumulated dust. “We’d like to water the team if you can spare it,” Cutter replied.

  “The well’s there to the side. Ya can draw what ya need.” The white trader gestured in the general direction of the desert well.

  “Sergeant,” Cutter, knowing Hooker had overheard the conversation, left the business of watering the mules to him.

  “Grover!” Sergeant John T. Hooker called to one of the troopers, a strapping, ebony-rimmed man named Angst Grover who was a six-year veteran with the Ninth.

  “Yo!” he responded to the summons, and moved quickly toward his sergeant.

  “Get some water from the well for these mules,” Hooker ordered.

  As the trooper drew abreast of Cutter, the trader pushed his chest out and adopted a surly stance. “You’re welcome to water your animals, but I ain’t got none to spare for them niggers of yours.” A victim of prejudice himself, Apache Jack was still quick to turn the tables and look down on those he considered inferior.

  Neither Private Grover nor Sergeant Hooker blinked an eye at the discriminatory remark. They were used to such bigotry, encountering it wherever they were stationed. A and C companies of the Ninth Cavalry Regiment had been assigned to Fort Bayard in southwestern New Mexico to provide protection for the miners and settlers around Silver City, but few were keen to be protected by colored soldiers—and they made no secret of their feelings.

  Jake Cutter was a man slow to rile, but when pushed, he shoved back hard. “What’s the matter, Reynolds? Do you think he might contarminate your water? Maybe you’re afraid the black rubs off? Well, it doesn’t!” He reached out and roughly wiped his hand across the trooper’s sweat-shiny ebony cheek, then held it palm
up toward the trader. “See,” he challenged. “But don’t worry. We won’t drink your damned water.”

  Apache Jack Reynolds backed away from Cutter, wary of that cold temper. He looked over his shoulder as the women filed into his store. “Best see if I can help the ladies,” he muttered, and left quickly.

  Through it all, Grover had stood silently next to Cutter, his sergeant on his other side. As his rancor eased to a grim tolerance, Cutter glanced at the colored soldier. A flare of pride and deep resentment was in the answering looks of both men.

  Cutter released a heavy breath. “Wiping your face like that embarrassed you, didn’t it, trooper?” he guessed.

  “Yes, suh.” It was confirmed with defiant stiffness.

  “I was trying to make a point—“ Cutter began, then stopped and gave a small shake of his head.

  “Water the mules, Grover,” Sergeant Hooker inserted quietly, dismissing the soldier.

  Cutter watched him walk away. When he spoke again, there was a hard edge to his voice. “I’m tired of hate, John T.” He dropped the military formality. “I’m tired of Rebs hating Yanks, whites hating blacks, white men hating red men. Such unreasoning hatred . . . it makes no sense. It’s like hating the desert because there’s no water in it.”

  “Yes, suh,” was the noncommittal response.

  Across the clearing Cutter saw Mrs. Wade pause in the doorway of the store and look back in a questioning manner. He touched his fingers to the brim of his hat and feigned a slight bow, assuring her all was well.

  CHAPTER 2

  LESS THAN AN HOUI LATER, HANNAH FELT THE SIBBLY strength of Cutter’s gauntleted hand as he assisted her aboard the army ambulance and waited while she arranged her skirts to sit on the seat. When she was comfortably settled with Mrs. Bettendorf and Mrs. Sloane, he walked to the back of the wagon and untied his horse. She watched him swing onto his McClellan saddle and wished, for an instant, that she had ridden her blooded thoroughbred. Army ambulances did not provide the gentlest of rides.

  “Do you ride, Mrs. Sloane?” she inquired with interest.

  “I have,” came the hesitant response from the young wife.

  “I ride almost daily. There are some lovely trails close to the fort. You must have your husband find a gentle mount for you, and we’ll ride together some morning,” Hannah urged.

  “Mrs. Wade is a most accomplished horsewoman,”

  Mrs. Bettendorf volunteered in endorsement of Hannah’s skill, although she herself had long since given up the pleasures of the sidesaddle for something a little more settled. “Naturally the colonel insists she never leave the fort unescorted, for her own protection.”

  “I don’t let that stop me.” Hannah’s voice had a carefree, lilting sound to it. “Even when Stephen is on duty, there is never a lack of officers to ride with. An escort can always be arranged.”

  “I’ll mention it to Dickie—Richard.” Mrs. Sloane hastily corrected her usage of the familiar nickname.

  The scrape of the brake being released was followed by the jangle of harness and bridle bits. Hannah gripped the seat for balance as the mules lunged into their collars. The wheels rattled over the stony ground, rolling and gathering momentum to sweep the wagon along.

  The track led into the mountain-wrinkled desert and took a northerly course toward Fort Bayard, which lay at the foot of the Pinos Altos Mountains. The two troopers deployed to their respective positions, one ranging in advance of the ambulance to ride point and the other lagging to the rear to ride drag. On the right, the side opposite the drifting dust of the wheels, Captain Cutter sat astride his drab brown horse, rocking in an easy canter.

  Hannah’s attention lingered on him, noting his tight seat in the saddle. That was the army way, which she had learned from Stephen. No longer could she be ridiculed for “rising” when her horse trotted; her seat in the sidesaddle was firm and secure. This winter Stephen had been so pleased with her progress that he’d even begun letting her jump the cavalry hurdles and ditches. She was becoming quite good.

  Idly she studied Jake Cutter’s long-bodied form, muscled and erect. He did not dance attendance on the young women living on Officers’ Row, as most of the bachelor officers did. Any attention he tendered was usually obligatory, such as this escort duty; the colonel had given him the assignment even though there were probably any number of volunteers for the task.

  Conscious of his alertness, the restless sweep of his gaze along their path, Hannah found herself searching the brush and gullies for any glimpse of a hiding Apache, The winter had been relatively quiet, but many officers—her husband among them—expected the raiding to begin with the onset of spring.

  Fort Bayard in the New Mexico Territory sat at the end of the rough and dusty ride. The frontier outpost was strategically situated where the desert and mountains met. To the south, the land prickled with cactus and thorny trees all the way to the Rio Grande and Mexico, and to the north lay the awesome canyon country of the Gila River area.

  Outside the fort’s perimeter there was a small encampment where the Apache scouts lived with their families. The head of the scouts, a white man named Amos Hill, lived there as well with his Apache squaw. As they passed, Hannah recognized her working outside the brush-covered jacal, her face whitened with rice powder.

  They passed the guardhouse post, entering the fort. No outer wall protected the collection of military buildings that surrounded the parade ground. There was no stockade behind which the soldiers could hide. Their only protection at this fort was their own vigilance—and their guns. It resembled a small town with its barracks, barns, shops, and supply stores, its military “upper-crust” housing along Officers’ Row, and the limited housing for the families of enlisted men on Suds Row, so named because the wives took in laundry to supplement their husbands’ army pay.

  The ambulance rolled down Officers’ Row, with its collection of squat, crudely built multifamily dwellings of adobe brick. Chimneys, constructed of the same mud-and-straw brick, poked from the tops of the brush-covered roofs. Ramadas jutted from the fronts of the structures, providing shade and a frontier-style galleried porch that faced the parade ground. When the ambulance stopped in front of one of the buildings, Captain Cutter dismounted to assist the ladies down from the wagon seats while the sergeant collected their purchases.

  “We did so enjoy your company this afternoon, Captain,” the commander’s wife thanked him.

  “My pleasure, Mrs. Bettendorf.” But the response was merely words, spoken without sincerity or any attempt to feign it.

  “The major and I are having a little get-together this evening to welcome Lieutenant and Mrs. Sloane to Fort Bayard. I do hope you’ll come, Captain,” Hannah invited, and saw the polite but definite refusal forming in his expression.

  “Of course he’ll be there, won’t you, Captain?” Mrs. Bettendorf stated in the most positive manner.

  “How can I possibly decline?” He bowed his head in a subservient manner, a resigned acceptance flattening his smile.

  As the empty ambulance with its escort of riders rattled toward the stables, Cutter took his leave of the women and remounted his brown cavalry horse. Instead of heading toward the barns, he turned the heavy-headed animal in the direction of Suds Row. Cutter knew what tonight’s party meant—formal military dress, so he’d be needing his clean laundry.

  The long, rectangular parade ground was like a village square with everything built around it. Officers’ Row was the “right” side of town, and Suds Row was the “wrong” side. The parade ground that separated them was as wide as the class distinction that separated them. Even if the Ninth hadn’t been a colored regiment, there would have been no socializing between the families of the officers and those of the enlisted men, and almost no contact of any kind except for the laundress services or the occasional maid help.

  The brown horse carried its rider across the parade ground at a shuffling trot and responded sluggishly to the pressure on the reins that turned it down the ro
w of tent housing behind the adobe-walled barracks. A handful of young Negro children, pickaninnies, stopped their noisy play to stare at the white officer.

  Halfway down the row Cutter saw the ripely curved black woman standing by fire and stirring something in a big iron pot. He slowed his horse to a walk as he approached her, the sight of her lush body blotting the children out of his vision. Clothes boiled in the iron kettle. As she stirred them with the long, water-whitened stick, her body swayed from the hips with the rhythm of it. Hers was an earthy beauty, full pouting lips and knowing eyes that looked at a man and knew what he wanted.

  Steam and perspiration had combined to plaster the cotton blouse to her torso. Her full, rounded breasts were clearly defined through the dampened fabric, even to the extent of showing the nubby points of her nipples. Cutter had trouble looking away from them. Cimmy Lou Hooker had a body that aroused a man, regardless of the color of her skin—and the fact that she was his sergeant’s wife.

  She stepped back from the heat for a moment’s relief from the steam and smoke and pressed her hands to the small of her back, flexing her muscles and thrusting forward those tautly round breasts. When she caught sight of him sitting on his horse watching her, her pose became deliberately provocative.

  “You likin’ what you see, Cap’n Cutter?” She grasped the long stick and slowly churned the clothes some more, making the action somehow suggestive.

  “Is my laundry ready, Mrs. Hooker?” The saddle leather squeaked as he shifted his weight and settled deeper in the flat-shaped McClellan saddle.

  “How come you always pick up yore clothes yo’self and don’t nevah send that young striker of yores?” She continued to stir the boiling clothes, her coffee-brown face all shiny and her young earthy beauty powerful as sin. “What you afraid I’m gonna do to him?”

  “I know what you’d do. It’s what the sergeant might do that worries me,” Cutter acknowledged dryly.