“Suit yourself, ma’am, mister. But I ain’t puttin’ Lance Calder out for nobody.”
The guard who rode shotgun turned to stare at Lance. “You’re Lance Calder?”
Lance’s shuttered look gave none of his feelings away. “That’s my name.”
Breaking into a sudden grin, the guard wiped his right hand on his pants and offered it to Lance. “I’ve heard tell about you, ‘bout the job you did for the Butterfield. I’m mighty honored to meet you, yessiree. I’m Petey Nesbeth. I hired on with this line last week.”
After the slightest hesitation, Lance accepted the offered hand and allowed Petey to pump his arm in a show of unbridled enthusiasm. “This fella,” Petey announced to the group, “was the best damn driver the Butterfield Stage ever had. Saved a lot o’ hides, never lost a passenger.” He turned back to Lance. “You’re welcome to ride up top with me. Shep told me about that time you kicked the Frazier boys off your route an’ then outran their ambush, but I shore would like to hear it from the horse’s mouth.”
Lance looked from Petey to the passengers, then to Summer. “Will you be okay?”
Something hard and bleak in his eyes tugged at her. She would have preferred to have his company, but apparently he was willing in the interest of peace to spare these good people his presence. Or perhaps he simply didn’t want to be subjected to their bigotry.
Summer forced a smile. “I’ll be fine.” Yet she couldn’t help but wonder, as she allowed Lance to help her inside the stagecoach, if this was what it was like for him, day after day, enduring the slurs and insults, the contempt of whites like her. She hadn’t realized it was so vicious. She was appalled that he had to suffer such treatment. No one deserved to be treated like filth. Especially a man as skilled and valuable as Lance.
She settled herself in the forward-facing seat beside the other woman. Then the remaining passengers climbed on board—one of the men beside her, the other two men facing the rear—and the drivers took their places. In another minute, Shep whipped up the fresh horses, and the stagecoach rolled out of the yard, picking up speed rapidly.
The deplorable state of the Texas roads, which often were no better than dirt trails, soon became apparent. Summer had to clutch the leather strap overhead to keep from being thrown from her seat, and soon the dust hung thickly in the air.
For a time no one attempted any conversation. Summer watched the Texas Hill Country flash by in a rolling blur of rocky outcrops and clumps of woodland, interspersed with grazing land that was beginning to rebound with green after the hot, dry August they’d just had. With her thoughts so absent, it was a moment before she realized the blond woman had addressed her.
“That Indian man…what does he call himself?”
A swift stab of anger arrowed through Summer, and she found herself leaping to Lance’s defense. “Why,” she said sweetly, “he calls himself Mr. Calder. And my husband.”
“Your…husband?”
The look of horror on the woman’s face reminded Summer forcibly of her new circumstances. A white woman who had married a man of mixed blood could hardly expect to be treated with the same respect and deference that the Belle of Williamson County had been accorded.
Indeed, such a reaction was even reasonable. She herself held conflicting emotions on the subject of Indians. Her own prejudice was deep-rooted. She’d been taught to hate the red man almost from the time she was born, ever since they had killed her mother so brutally, and her father had nearly gone mad with bitterness and grief. Few Texans who had carved homes out of the wilderness had escaped the atrocities committed by the various Plains tribes, particularly the Comanche: neighbors and beloved relatives murdered, captured, enslaved, outraged. It was only a few years ago that the last of the Indians had been driven from Texas, forced to live farther north in the Indian Territory. The fact that Lance still remained, that he hadn’t allowed himself to be driven out, only testified to his grit.
She would have to adopt some of that grit now, Summer realized bleakly. His own private battles would now become hers. She could tell by the way the other passengers were observing her—with faint contempt and undisguised speculation. The man directly across from her eyed her with a boldness that he would never have dared use if she had been protected by her father or brothers.
Abruptly Summer turned her face to the window. She couldn’t worry about that right now. She would have to deal with her marriage to Lance once Amelia had been safely returned, yes, but until then, she simply couldn’t let herself think about it. Until Lance succeeded in his goal, she would have to control her dismay and turmoil over her relationship with her new husband.
What mattered most was finding Amelia and bringing her home alive.
Chapter 5
The two-hundred-plus-mile journey by stage to Fort Belknap took three and a half exhausting twelve-hour days—and then only because the weather remained good. The trip, though dusty and dry, was blessed with sunshine, moderate daytime temperatures, and cool evenings, with none of the rains that could turn the Texas prairies into fields of mud and the streams into dangerous torrents.
After leaving Round Rock, the stage stopped in Georgetown to pick up two more passengers, and then headed north through the hills, eventually spilling out into more open country bordered by forest known as the Cross Timbers. Mile after endless mile of undulating terrain—half prairie, half woodland—rumbled by. Seas of wild gamma grass followed the dip and roll of the land, melding with clumps of scrub cedar and thickets of post oak and pecans, broken here and there by willows and cottonwoods that grew along the sandy creek beds. Occasionally pounding herds of buffalo thundered by in great clouds of dust to alleviate the monotony, and sometimes there were signs of civilization—farm acreage whose sandy soil was planted in corn or melons, or ranches that raised cattle or horses.
From the very beginning of the journey, Summer received a firsthand taste of the rejection and scorn that Lance had lived with all his life. While nothing overt occurred, the grim silences and the bold sneers of the other passengers served to clearly emphasize her changed status. Before the end of the first day, she had begun to understand Lance’s anger at white prejudice and his own inferior position in society. It was no wonder that respectability and acceptance were so important to him, if he’d had to face this sort of bigoted hostility day after day.
For the first time she could imagine what his life had been like. Lance carried himself with a kind of hard self-awareness and defiance—a combination that had always dangerously fascinated her before, but now seemed to be entirely justified. The remoteness, the damn-your-eyes attitude, had no doubt been bred into him by years of being
shunned. As a child, he would have learned from painful experiences not to expect approval or acceptance. As a man he would have learned to fight for every inch of respect and acknowledgment he could muster, even while pretending that the rejection, the rebuffs, the contempt, didn’t matter—a strategy with which she was quickly coming to sympathize.
She had few chances to speak to Lance alone initially. The relay stations where they stopped for the night boasted primitive accommodations that afforded little privacy. The first night was the best. The small stone building doubled as an eating establishment and bunkhouse. The men slept in the hard, cramped bunks, while the two ladies shared a bedtick stuffed with prairie feathers—wild grass—near the fireplace. The second night there were no bunks, only a dirt floor and blankets that hadn’t seen a good washing in months. The fare for every meal never varied—salt pork and cornbread.
Neither night did Lance attempt to claim his rights as her husband, as Summer feared he would, or even try to remain near her. He bedded down outside in the open air, along with Petey, not pushing the issue of his acceptance.
Summer didn’t know whether to be relieved or offended by his neglect. She could sense that his withdrawal was as much emotional as it was physical, and it left her feeling acutely alone and somehow abandoned. The naked intimacy they had shared on their wedding night might as well never have happened—except for the sharp memories that frequently assaulted her. The feel of his hands on her breasts…the heat of his mouth covering hers…his steel-hard body pressing her down…his fingers moving in hungry, quickening rhythm between her legs…the fierce pleasure he had given her against her will.
The memories of pleasure conflicted with other, darker feelings toward Lance. Her resentment at his forcing her to wed had been repressed temporarily by her determination to get on with the difficult task ahead, but during the endless weary hours of the journey, it returned full force. Lance was greatly to blame for the silent treatment she was receiving at the hands of the other passengers. If he hadn’t demanded their marriage in exchange for his help, she would still be Miss Weston, admired and courted, accepted unquestioningly—Summer shook her head fiercely at the ignoble thought. She didn’t want to return to being the spoiled, pampered darling she’d once been, but having to deal with the disapproval, the silent scorn of the other passengers, was unnerving. Despite her contention with Lance, it comforted her to know he was near.
During the lonely, numbing hours of travel, jostled by the unrelenting rock and sway of the stagecoach, lulled by the monotonous landscape, she even found herself wondering what it would have been like if they had met under different circumstances. If they had married without the tension between them, without the resentment of the past, the uncertainty of the future. If Lance were white—