Mountain Laurel (Montgomery/Taggert 15)

’Ring looked from one man to the other, then at Maddie and gave a little pull to the brim of his hat. “Good evening, ma’am,” he said, then turned, walked around Edith, and went to his horse. A step behind him was Toby, who looked with some awe at Sam, then he winked at Maddie before he mounted his army-issue horse.

They weren’t completely out of earshot before Maddie started laughing. Frank chuckled too, and even Sam smiled, but Edith didn’t.

“He ain’t gonna like what you said to him,” Edith snapped.

“I didn’t like what he said to me!”

“Yeah, well, a woman was born to take whatever a man gives her, but a man ain’t used to it.”

“Then I shall start a new trend of women not taking what a man offers,” she snapped, then calmed. “Oh well, it doesn’t matter, we’ve seen the last of him.” Sam made a movement, nodding his head toward the hill where the two men had sat, and watched them through a spyglass. “Yes,” Maddie said. “I think an extra watch tonight might be appropriate.”

She turned away as Frank lit the lamps. She thought she might go to bed so that she could get an early start in the morning. She smiled again. So much for the army, she thought.

“Scare her, huh?” Toby was saying as they sat around the campfire eating army hardtack. “That lady don’t seem like she’s scared of nothin’!” He chuckled in admiration. “I didn’t see either one of them men, didn’t even know they was there until they stepped out. Where do you think they was? That big one, I could believe he was in hell and just come up through the earth, but the other one—”

“Could you keep your mouth shut for a few minutes?” ’Ring snapped.

Toby didn’t have the least intention of being quiet. “She sure is a looker, ain’t she? You think a woman pretty as she is can sing?”

’Ring tossed out the dregs of his coffee. “No. If she’s a singer, I’m a liar.”

“And you ain’t that, are you, boy?” Toby’s eyes were dancing. “You just told her the truth, that she didn’t know nothin’ about nothin’. ’Course you never asked her if she had a couple of plug-uglies to take care of her, you just told her. She sure didn’t like that, did she? Said you made more noise than…what was that?”

“An opera,” ’Ring said loudly. “She mentioned the name of an opera. Don’t you have something else to do, old man, besides flap your jaws?”

“Oooeee, I hope you don’t scare me as bad as you scared that little lady. Where you goin’?”

’Ring mounted his horse. “Don’t expect me back before morning.”

Toby frowned. “I hope you ain’t plannin’ nothin’ stupid. That big one looks like he could break you in half.”

“That’s more difficult than it seems.” ’Ring reined his horse away into the trees. When he was some distance away from Toby and away from the singer’s coach, he dismounted, removed his saddle bags, and pulled out everything. In the very bottom was a roll of leather and inside of the roll was a round tin box. He hadn’t looked at these objects for a couple of months, but he knew he needed them now.

As he began to undress, his mind went back to the evening. It wasn’t the humiliation that bothered him, or even that he was humiliated by a woman, no, a man could stand words, but what bothered him was that she was getting in the way of an order. The army had given him an order, and no matter how much he didn’t want to carry out the order, he meant to do it no matter what was said to the contrary.

So, she thought she was safe in this country, did she? She thought she was safe because she had two men watching over her. It was true ’Ring hadn’t been aware of the men skulking in the shadows of the coach—he accepted the blame for that—but when he had seen them, he hadn’t been intimidated. The short one, Frank, had a cloudy left eye. If he wasn’t blind on that side, he was close to it. With the black man, for all that his skin was tight and he appeared to be ageless, ’Ring detected a slight stiffness in his movements, and when he stood, he favored his right knee. It was his guess that the man was older than he looked and his right leg gave him a great deal of pain. As for the woman and her knives, he dismissed her. There was lust and longing in her eyes and he suspected he had merely to smile at her and she’d drop her knives.

As for the singer, this LaReina, she was the most difficult to read. He thought he’d known her when he first saw her. She seemed soft and wide-eyed. She seemed as though she was listening to every word he said. She appeared to be a lady, what with her manners of offering Toby tea from her fine dishes. None of the officers’ wives would have offered a private, especially one who looked like Toby, so much as a smile. Yet this opera singer had.

As ’Ring removed the last of his clothing, he knew that the woman did need an escort. Perhaps General Yovington had realized that and that’s why he’d asked for an army man. The choice of Lieutenant Surrey was an odd one, though. ’Ring remembered him as a quiet man who kept to himself. There wasn’t much els

e to remember about him except that once he’d been accused of cheating. The general must have had good reasons for his choice.

Whoever he’d chosen to escort her, the general had certainly been perceptive enough to realize that she did indeed need someone with her. Perhaps the general could tell that she was a woman who was as soft as talcum powder but believed herself to be tough and invincible. She seemed to think she’d have no trouble in the gold country in spite of the fact that she was the prettiest thing he’d seen in years.

When he was nude, he fastened the breech cloth about his hips, stepped into tall, soft moccasins, tied a knife about his waist, then opened the can of vermilion.

Her prettiness was a problem. Maybe he could keep the miners away from her, but how was he going to keep her away from the miners? Perhaps the general meant the woman’s escort to keep her pure and chaste, to see that she didn’t have trysts with other men.

As he dipped his fingers in the powdered vermilion, he shrugged. He was a soldier. He had no reason to question what was behind his orders. He just meant to obey them.

Maddie was deeply asleep, dreaming that she was singing at La Scala with Adelina Patti. The audience booed and hissed at Patti, then began chanting, “LaReina, LaReina.”

She was smiling in her sleep when the bright light of a match being struck then a lamp being lit woke her. She blinked a few times, not wanting to open her eyes. “Edith, put out that light,” she murmured, and started to turn over. Something was holding her hand above her head. Sleepily, she pulled on it, then awakened a bit to pull harder. Her hand wouldn’t move. Suddenly, in a panic, she started to sit up, but it seemed that both her hands and both her feet were tied to the cot. She opened her mouth to scream.

“Go ahead and scream. I can assure you that no one will come to your rescue.”

She closed her mouth and turned to see Captain Montgomery sitting on the floor in the middle of the tent, calmly smoking a thin cigar. But it was such a different Captain Montgomery that at first she almost didn’t recognize him. He wore only a leather loincloth, leaving his long, strong-looking legs bare, as well as a good portion of his muscular buttocks. His chest was bare except for a great deal of hair and three marks of vermilion at one shoulder. He also had stripes of the brilliant red-orange powder across one cheek.