Chapter Fourteen--Back to the Fort

     She’s forgotten all about me by now…Robin, of course. But Julie Ratliff and I had some nice times together. She kept going out to the canyon with me, and she was careful. She did what I told her to and we weren’t seen. I still had headaches, but they were slowing getting better. And it was nice to have some company. It didn’t hurt that she was young and beautiful and didn’t seem to mind me kissing on her. In fact, she seemed to mind it when I didn’t.
     But it was the possible Indian uprising that overshadowed all else. If the native battalion was growing, it was doing it in a hardly perceptible way, though we did see a few more ride in from time to time. Small groups of maybe 10 or 15. The warriors still gave no sign of imminent attack. Indeed, they were busy making lances, chipping arrowheads, cleaning rifles, making flammables, boiling war paint. The next Monday I got more than angry when I saw a big, bearded white man rolling a wagon into the camp. He had several rectangular boxes in the back which proved to be filled with rifles that he was obviously selling to the Indians. Julie gasped and looked at me. I just shook my head.
     “Do you know him?” she asked me.
     “No, but believe me, if I ever get him within my rifle sites, he’ll be pushing up daisies in a hurry.”
     Tuesday I saw something that absolutely horrified me. I was looking at the camp through my field glasses, when I stopped and did a double take. “Oh, no,” I whispered. “Oh…no…” And then I put down the glasses, sighed, and rubbed my eyes.
     “What is it?” Julie asked.
     I handed her the glasses and pointed. She peered through them for a few seconds, and exclaimed, “Oh, no.”
     “I said that, twice.” What she saw, and what I had seen, were about 7 or 8 white women working in the camp. It appeared they were cooking and sewing and brewing—doing odd jobs, under the watchful eye of two Indian braves.
     “Do you think they were kidnapped?” Julie asked.
     “Almost assuredly.”
     “Robert, what are we going to do?”
     I shook my head again. “Report it. That’s all we can do. I can’t take on that camp all by myself, and I see no way, at the moment, to get them out of there.” I looked at her. “You do not want to be one of those women, Julie.”
     She visibly shuddered. “No, I do not.” She continued to look down into the camp, but not with the glasses. Softly, she asked me, “Will they kill them?”
     “When they are through with them, yes. But frankly, that might be a long time from now. The warriors who take the most scalps in the coming battle will win one of them, and she’ll become his squaw until he tires of her. Then he can dispose of her as he wishes. Probably give her over to the women in his band. Hell hath no fury like a jealous Indian squaw.” This time I shuddered. “The way they can torture and kill is unbelievable.” I looked at Julie, dead serious. “If you ever see that you’re going to be taken by them, if at all possible, put the barrel of a gun in your mouth and pull the trigger. Believe me, that would be far, far better than what they would do to you.”
     She only nodded, and had a worried expression on her face.
     The runner that day was a man I hadn’t seen before, and he told us, “Colonel Ratliff wants you both back at the fort, on the double. That means tomorrow. I’ll take over scouting for awhile.”
     I looked at Julie and shrugged. She appeared annoyed, to say the least.
     When we got back to the fort the next day, Sergeant McCoy met us. “Straight to the colonel’s office,” he told us. “No pit stops.”
     “Tell him to go take a flying leap into the eternal abyss,” I said. “I’m starving to death and I’m going to eat something first.” I took Julie by the arm. “Come on, Julie. Your old man can wait.”
     She smiled.
     We were sitting in the mess hall eating when a young soldier came up and pointed a rifle at me. “The colonel gave you an order, sir, and he wants to see you and his daughter now. So come on.”
     I stood up, grabbed the barrel of the rifle, pointed it upwards, then twisted it and hit the soldier in the stomach with the barrel end of it. He doubled up and grimaced in pain.
     “Go tell your colonel that I’m going to eat first. What he’s got to say can wait, with common decency, for me and his daughter to get fed.”
     The soldier staggered out of the mess hall, holding his stomach. A few other soldiers in the room had stood up, but they didn’t come towards me. I sat back down to finish my meal.
     Julie was smiling at me. “That wasn’t very nice.”
     I grunted. “Tell the old fox to get some manners.”
     “He’s used to being obeyed.”
     “He’s used to ordering around soldiers, of which I am not one.” And I smiled at her. “Nor are you.”
     When Julie and I finally went into the colonel’s office, there were several other officers seated in the room, and Wigwam was there, too. Colonel Ratliff looked fit to be tied, his face almost as red as a beet with rage.
     He stood up and leaned against his desk, fire in his eyes. “I gave you a direct order, mister. Consider yourself under arrest for disobeying orders and assaulting a soldier.”
     I went right up to his desk, leaned on it, and with my face six inches from his, I said, just as heatedly, “No, I will NOT consider myself under arrest, Colonel. I am NOT in this man’s army and you cannot order me around or legally arrest me unless I do break the law. And for a civilian to disobey the insufferable order of an army colonel is not against anybody’s law but yours. And for me to defend myself against a man who pokes a rifle up my nose is not against the law, either. You aren’t paying me, remember?”
     “What was so ‘insufferable’ about my order?” he asked, not budging.
     “I was suffering because I was hungry, so I considered the order insufferable.”
     I heard Julie giggle behind me, then try to cover it up with a cough. Colonel Ratliff threw her a quick glance with his eyes, then looked back at me. “I can arrest you for kidnapping my daughter.”
     I threw up my hands in disbelief and laughed. “Colonel, I suspect you know your daughter well enough to know I didn’t kidnap her.”
     “He didn’t kidnap me, Father, I went of my own accord,” Julie said. “And he wanted to send me back here, but I wouldn’t go. He was nothing but a gentlemen the whole time I was with him, which is a whole lot more than I can say for most of the other men in this fort.”
     That got an uncomfortable murmur from the men in the room. “Hush, Julie,” Ratliff said. “I’ll talk to you later.”
     Now she was angry and she came over to his desk. “No, we’ll talk now. I’m tired of being cooped up in this miserable little box with nothing to do but fend off a bunch of knuckle-dragging apes.” More murmur in the room. “I want to get out some, go to town, enjoy a little nightlife, go dancing, have a social life, do all the things that a 22 year-old woman wants to do. But you won’t let me do anything. I enjoyed myself more the last few days than I have the whole time I’ve been here. And I felt like I was doing something important for a change, helping Robert with the work you gave him to do. This just isn’t the life for me, Father, not without a little freedom to have one of my own.”
     Ratliff was still leaning on his desk, but he didn’t say anything. My voice softened as I spoke to him. “You’re being selfish, Colonel Ratliff. It’s perfectly understandable that you want your only daughter near you, and from what I’ve learned of her, she loves you and doesn’t begrudge you a bit wanting her here. But she is 22, with all the wants and desires of a woman her age, and you do need to give her a little room to breathe. And for you to keep her tied down just because you want her to be near you is a thoughtless and cruel thing to do.”
     The colonel still didn’t say anything for awhile, but he appeared to be a little more under control. “We’ll talk about it later, Julie,” He glanced at me. “Please be seated, Mr. Constance. We will discuss your circumstance later as well. Right now, we need to have a meeting to discuss this Indian matter. Julie, please leave while we talk.”
     “I’m staying, Father. I was there with Mr. Constance, I saw the situation, and I feel like I’m a part of this and want to know what is being decided.”
     He turned red again and looked apoplectic. I grinned at him and said, “Now, who gives the orders around here, Colonel?”
     He glared at me, then he started chuckling. “I can’t win, I cannot win. Ok, Julie, make a fool of me in front of my men, you can stay.”
     One of the officers in the room piped up. “She ain’t makin’ a fool of you, Colonel, we’ve known for a long time who gives the orders in this fort.” And everybody laughed, including Colonel Ratliff.
     “Please be seated, Mr. Constance—and Julie—and we’ll get this meeting started.” I sat and Julie took a chair next to me. “Do you have anything especially new to report?” he asked me.
     “Yes, I do. The Indian contingent is perhaps growing, it’s hard to tell how much, but I would suspect the number is at least 2,000 now. But we also saw about 8 to 10 white women in the camp.”
     Now that did cause a stir in the room, and a very angry one. Ratliff’s face went hard. “White women? Are you sure?”
     I gave him a wry grin, and motioned with my head to Julie. “Ask my backup.” Ratliff glanced over at her and she just nodded her head. He sighed, then said to Wigwam, “Have you heard anything about this?”
     He shook his head. “News to me. If my sources know it, they are keeping quiet about it.”
     Ratliff said, “Well, maybe this is what we need to get Washington to take this matter seriously.” Then to me, he added, “I don’t know if you are up to date with the latest, Mr. Constance, but Washington says they can only spare 1,000 troops to help us. There appears to be some sporadic outbreaks of Indian uprisings all over the territory.”
     “Don’t tell me,” I replied. “Uprisings by Nipita, Santara, Moshawa…” In other words, the tribes that were gathering in the canyon.
     “Yes, obviously designed to keep our troops active and away from here. So, with my command, we’ll have about 1,150 soldiers fighting over 2,000 Indian warriors. Who, your report yesterday said, were being supplied rifles by some white ruffian.”
     I nodded. “Big fellow, burly, long black hair and beard.”
     “Josie Dexter,” Wigwam supplied. “Been gun running for the Indians for years and nobody has ever been able to catch him.”
     “He’s a scoundrel, there’s no doubt about that,” I said. Then, back to Ratliff. “But there’s still no evidence that their attack is imminent. They beat their drums periodically, but that appears to be just to let any newcomers know the location of their camp. There doesn’t seem to be any rush. In fact, they are still making arrows and arrowheads, boiling war paint, sharpening lances, cleaning rifles. They looked like they were doing pretty much what your men do every day.”
     Ratliff nodded. “Then we may have a little time to come up with something. I don’t especially want a head-on charge, not with them having probably twice the men we have. That would be a bloodbath anyway.” He looked around the room. “Anyone with a suggestion?”
     Major Underwood asked a question. “Are we going to ask for any assistance from the men of Whitewater, Dry Gulch, and the other towns within reasonable distance.”
     Colonel Ratliff nodded. “I’ve sent Lieutenant Veal to Whitewater to tell the mayor and city council about the problem and see if they want to raise a contingent of troops. I’ll do the same for the other towns, but I’m not sure who I’ll send or when, and I don’t really expect much help from them simply because they aren’t in the line of fire, so to speak. How many guns Whitewater can raise, I don’t know, but I’m not expecting much.”
     One officer, a Captain Martin, spoke up. “Mr. Constance, you say the Indians are encamped in a box canyon?”
     “Yes.”
     “So there is only one way in and out?”
     “That’s right.”
     “How wide it is? The mouth?”
     “A couple hundreds yards, I’d guess.” I threw a glance at Wigwam and he nodded.
     Martin then said to Ratliff, “Why don’t we station our troops just outside the mouth of the canyon? We can bottle them up in there and if they make a charge, we could slaughter them as they came out.” Some murmur of assent.
     Another man, Lieutenant Shorter said, “Or maybe we could just place our troops all around the top edge of the canyon. Shoot down at them. Be like shootin’ fish in a barrel.” More murmurs of assent.
     Ratliff looked at me. “How high are those canyon walls?”
     “200 feet max.”
     Ratliff’s face was thoughtful. He was tapping the eraser end of his pencil as he was thinking. “Hmmm…any one else have a suggestion?”
     No one spoke up.
     “Those are both pretty good plans. I think we need to discuss them further, perhaps do a little more reconnaissance, and decide if we want to pursue either of them.”
     Julie then said, “But what about those women? What will the Indians do to them?”
     A silent pause. “They’ll…probably kill them, dear,” her father answered.
    “Are you prepared to sacrifice the lives of those women like that?”
     Colonel Ratliff frowned. “Lives are going to be lost anyway, honey. It’s tragic, yes, but if we let those Indians out of that canyon to attack Whitewater, then there will be a whole lot more blood lost.”
     “Well, but can’t we think of something else? I mean, if I were one of those women…” She looked at me, that pleading, questioning expression on her face that was so sexy and so attractive.
     “There is one way we could settle this,” I said, “without any bloodshed at all.”
     Ratliff’s eyebrows went up. “And that is…?”
     “Let them have their mountain back.”
     After a moment of stunned silence, there was an uproar in the room. Angry denunciations, curses, fire-breathing dragons and demons from hell were let loose. Ratliff made a motion for silence. “Mr. Constance, we are trying to come up with a sensible solution here. Let’s refrain from the ridiculous.”
     Julie spoke up, very softly, but where everybody could definitely hear her. “I think it’s a marvelous idea. It belonged to them for thousands of years before we got here, and they even left the town alone as long as nobody bothered the mountain. But when the miners came, they are ready to fight. It’s sacred to them.”
     Everybody was quiet this time. Then somebody spoke up, sharply, another captain. “They are a bunch of savages with a pagan religion. There’s wealth in those mountains that can make a lot of people rich. It’s ours now, and we need to fight for what is ours.”
     I spoke up again, my eyes closed, panic and agony building up within my breast. I spoke softly, “Captain, if somebody attacked and destroyed something that was very near and dear to you, what would you do?” Julie threw a sharp glance at me. She knew where I was coming from.
     “Well, I’d fight.”
     “You’d want it back, too, wouldn’t you.”
     “Yeah, well, of course I would. But it ain’t theirs now.”
     I exhaled slowly and opened my eyes. “Then get prepared for a lot of bloodshed. A lot of it.” Julie reached over and softly put her hand on mine. I looked over at her and gave her a small smile.
     “You an Indian lover, Constance?” somebody said, and with malice in his voice.
     I just shook my head slowly. “No. But I do know what it feels like to lose something that is very, very precious to you.”
     Ratliff was staring at me with a peculiar expression on his face. “Who are you, mister?”
     I shifted my eyes to him. “I told you. Robert Constance.”
     “I hear you’re pretty good with a gun, Mr. Constance. Four men, less than one second, with your head bashed in.”
     There were some puzzled faces in the room. Nobody knew what he was talking about. I gave Ratliff a wan smile. “Anybody can get lucky once.”
     He grunted. “Nobody is that lucky.” Then he looked around the room. “I think we can dismiss Mr. Constance’s suggestion about giving the mountain back to the natives. We’ll concentrate on one of the other two plans, unless someone comes up with another one. Sleep on it, gentlemen, and we’ll meet back here tomorrow at 1300 hours to discuss the matter further.” He stood up, and everyone else did, too. He saluted, the officers saluted, and they left the room, some of them giving me a pretty wicked glare. I turned and started to leave, too, with Julie beside me, when Ratliff called out, “Constance. Would you stay, please. Julie, you, too.”
     I glanced at her and shrugged. She smiled a “well, I guess we’ll find out, won’t we” smile.
     When everyone had cleared out, Colonel Ratliff said, “I do want to thank you, Mr. Constance, for saving my daughter from an horrendous experience and saving her life, though I certainly disapprove of her being there in the first place.”
     “Well, she returned the favor by fixing me up afterwards.”
     He simply nodded. “And I apologize to you, my dear Julie. Mr. Constance is correct, I have been terribly selfish in keeping you here. If you wish to return east and continue your life there, I will make disposition for you to do so.”
     She smiled at him sadly. “I love you, Father, and I do want to be with you. And I love it here in the west. But I don’t want my life to pass me by. I’d like to enjoy some things that…that I guess I just can’t enjoy here in the fort. The theatre, opera, music, dancing. I don’t want to live the life of a princess, but I would like to have a few more options.” Then she made a face. “And I doubt I’ll have very many male friends left here once my ‘knuckle-dragging ape’ comment gets around.” I smiled and even her father smiled at that. “One of the reasons I went out to be with Robert was because it was just something different. He seemed nice when he first arrived and I wanted to do…something different. A little exciting, maybe a little dangerous.”
     “You didn’t get your fill of it by almost being raped and killed?” I asked.
     She hesitated and said, “That was certainly frightening, yes. But that can happen in the city as well, can it not?”
     I had to concede her point. “Probably more likely actually.”
     Colonel Ratliff then said, “I will accede to whatever you wish, Julie. I have kept you here long enough and will accept any decision you make.”
     “Can’t you find an assignment back east, father?”
     “My place is here with my men, Julie. I think you know that.”
     She just nodded. “I’ll…consider everything, father.”
     Then Ratliff looked at me. “Mr. Constance, I understand that you are a civilian and, yes, technically I have no authority over you, except to fire you, which I do not intend to do. I would ask you, though, if you would do your best not to show me up in front of my men. As I suspect you know, we do not have the…highest class of humanity here, though the officers are of a better quality. But if it gets around that you have flaunted my authority, it will only make my position more difficult.”
     I nodded. His point was well-taken. “I’ll honor that request, sir. I meant no disrespect to you.”
     “I know that. Regarding your suggestion concerning the Indian matter, it was far and away the best solution. But I think you also realize the futility of such an idea. The mining company is not going to give up land that they believe is theirs—they ‘bought’ it, as they see it—and they will use every means necessary to protect their investment, regardless of how many lives might be lost in the process. It is simply the way things are done, as I’m sure you realize.”
     “Yeah. ‘Money answereth all things.’”
     “Precisely. If you wish to continue your current assignment, you are welcome to do so. However, I would understand perfectly if you resigned and moved on with whatever matters you were attending to before this came up.”
     “No, if you still want me, Colonel, I’ll be happy to continue. We did make an agreement, and as long as you think I can be of assistance, or until I’ve had enough, I’ll stay on.”
     He nodded. “Thank you. I was hoping you’d stay. I just can’t spare many men at the moment. Can you be ready to ride back out tomorrow and resume your duties?”
     “Yes.”
     Julie said, “I’m going with him, father.” Then added hastily, looking at me, “If…he wants…thinks I can…help.”
     My eyes met hers. I was torn. I enjoyed her company, every part of it, and liked her cooking a whole lot better than mine, but she’d be a whole lot safer here than with me. Yet, she had just said how she had enjoyed being out there, and I’m sure it would disappoint her to have to stay here at the fort, a place she found so understandably boring.
     So I looked back at Colonel Ratliff. “Though she would no doubt be safer here, I have no objection to her coming, but I will leave that up to the two of you. I’ll leave at dawn. Is there anything else?”
     “No. Carry on. I will send runners to you every day as before.”
     I nodded, looked one more time at Julie, who appeared a little hurt, then I left the room.

     I was standing outside the barracks, leaning on a support post when I heard a soft voice behind me.
     “Just…’no objection’?”
     I turned and faced her. “I was talking to your father. I think I needed to choose my words very carefully.”
     She lowered her head, then looked back up at me. “But don’t you see how that makes it appear—in his eyes? That I want to go, but that you just ‘have no objection.’ I’m just a cheap hussy chasing after you.” She turned around, but didn’t walk away. Her head was down.
     Great job, Conners, you’re a whiz with the women…I went over to her. “What did you tell him?”
     “I told him I wasn’t sure.”
     “Well, we’ll settle this right now.” I reached around and took her by the hand, and started walking across the compound to the colonel’s office, pulling her along. “Where are we going,” she asked.
     “To your father’s office.”
     “He’ll be in our quarters now.”
     I changed directions. “Then that’s where we are going.”
     “Robert…”
     “Hush.”
     She caught up with me. I didn’t let go of her hand.
     I went up to the door of the Ratliff’s quarters, and knocked. “What are you going to tell him?” Julie asked me.
     “You’ll see.”
     The colonel opened the door is his robe and seemed a little surprised to see Julie and me standing there.
     “Yes?” he said.
     I spoke. “I’m not sure I made my position clear regarding Julie and whether I wanted her to go with me tomorrow. Though I’m sure she would be safer here at the fort, I can be selfish, too, Colonel Ratliff, and I definitely want her to go. She was of tremendous use to me the several days she was there. I can make it without her, of course, and I certainly wanted to give you and her an opportunity to have input in the matter. But I don’t want it left in doubt that she is most welcome to join me and I would very much like to have her with me. The ultimate decision doesn’t rest with me, though.”
     The Ratliffs were both looking at me closely. Then the colonel said, “Well, I guess that’s clear enough. I leave the decision up to Julie.” The two of us looked at her.
     She was a little nonplussed. “Well, yes, I’d like to go. If you think I can do some good.”
     I gave her a small smile, meeting her eyes. “Oh, I think I can find some things for you to do.”
     And she smiled at me, with a cute, pixie smile. “Well, then I guess I’d better get my stuff ready to go.”
     “I suppose so.”
     Colonel Ratliff was still standing at the door, watching us. I glanced at him. “Colonel, would you close the door for just a minute?”
     He blinked a couple of times, then replied, “Oh. Oh, yes, yes, of course.” He looked at Julie and then shut the door.
     I smiled down at her. “Did I do better that time?”
     And she smiled back. “Yes, that was much better. Thank you.”
     “That’s what I meant the first time, I was just trying to be diplomatic.”
     “Diplomacy doesn’t always work.”
     “So I found out. And I learned my lesson very well, too. I’m not going to be very diplomatic right now, either.”
     “Oh?” she said, still smiling and looking into my eyes. “In what way?”
     I pulled her to me and said, “Like this.” And I kissed her, long, but tenderly.
     “Mmmm,” she said, when we broke the kiss. “I hope you’re not planning on being diplomatic when we get to the camp.”
     “Oh, I’m going to be a lot more than non-diplomatic, you can count on that.” And she laughed softly.
     She went inside, and I walked across the compound, thoughtful. My mind should have been on my assignment, but it wasn’t. Frankly, even more than the assignment, it ought to be on saving my hide and getting out of that country as quickly as I could. But it wasn’t that easy. There had been another Julie. This new one wasn’t in her class—yet. But I’d never see the first Julie again. A sharp pain pierced my heart.
     And then someone else came to my mind…as she always did. How does this Julie compare to her?…
     I smiled ruefully. I’m not sure that even the first Julie compares to Robin…Then I shook my head in wonder. How in the world can I say that? I knew her for less than 24 hours. It isn’t possible for someone to get that deep inside another person in that short a time. This is ridiculous. I’ll bet she never even thinks about me any more. It can’t be this way.
     Can it?
     Maybe this Julie could help me forget. Or maybe somebody else could.
     Or maybe I never would.
     And I wouldn’t go north. Not yet, at least. Is she controlling my life?…
     Though I didn’t know it, of course, that same thought had just crossed Robin Morrow’s head about me….