One Wore Blue (6 page)

“Wait!” Lacey cried. “If Kiernan goes, you’ll have to take me too.”

“No, Mrs. Donahue, we don’t want you!” Cain, the black man, spoke emphatically.

“Lacey, please stay here,” Kiernan said, staring at Lacey and praying that the woman would understand that she would be better off without her.

“But Kiernan—”

“Lacey, please.”

Lacey stepped back, her small mouth pursed indignantly. She was holding up rather well, Kiernan decided.

Better than I am at this moment, she thought.

“Miss Mackay.” Cain stepped back politely for her to pass by. Kiernan did so, walking by him. She still held the parasol. She was wonderfully dressed, she thought to herself, with her laced and smocked white cotton nightgown and small blue parasol. She wasn’t even wearing shoes.

“Fine,” she said curtly. She stepped past them and started down the stairs. If she could leave the house ahead of them, perhaps she could run. These men seemed to know a lot, but they couldn’t possibly know this town as she did—the alleys, and where the trails led almost straight up to the heights.

She moved quickly, but they were right behind her.

She came into the parlor. In the growing light of dawn, she could see the poker by the fire. A much better weapon than a parasol! she thought.

Not that it could stop a bullet either.

She hurried through the parlor to the office. The shattered glass lay before the door. She stopped in her tracks.

“Gentlemen, since you won’t allow me shoes, I’d appreciate it very much if you could sweep up the glass before we proceed.”

“What!” the white man demanded belligerently.

“My feet,” Kiernan said flatly. “If you want to impress the rest of the world, you shouldn’t have your hostages bleeding and in pain.”

“There’s no need to hurt the girl now,” Cain said.

The other shrugged. “Oh, hell!”

The two of them stepped around her to collect the broken glass. Kiernan waited until they were bent over at their task, then turned and fled back through the parlor for the back-porch door.

She could hear swearing behind her. When she reached the back door, she found it bolted. Swearing to herself, she slid the bolt and rushed through.

She stood on the back step for a moment, surveying her options. She was almost dead center in the town, and the cliffs rose high above her. The Roman Catholic church jutted out almost straight above her, and the climbing pathway to Jefferson’s Rock and the cemetery were straight above that. She knew the area well—knew that a treacherous path hewn out of the foliage led precariously up the path.

She could leap from the steps and run quickly around the house for the street.

Or she could run for the footpath up the hill and try to disappear into the jutting cliff and dirt and the foliage that clung tenaciously to it.

The footsteps were close.

She threw the parasol behind her and raced across the yard, painfully aware that she was barefoot. She found the overgrown path up the steep cliff and began to climb, hoping that the foliage would fall back around her and hide her. She grabbed for bushes, for handholds as well as footholds, moving as quickly as she could.

“She’s started up!” one of them shouted.

“Stop, or I’ll shoot!” his companion warned her.

Was it an idle threat? She had a feeling that the two of them had been ordered to bring her back alive. She kept climbing.

An expletive rang out in the cool dawn.

And then someone was following her, climbing up behind her.

“Kiernan!”

Her name was called from the street. She could hear the sound of horse’s hooves. Someone was out there, calling to her in a husky rich voice.

But she was still being followed.

“I’ll kill the bitch!” she heard.

She kept climbing, nearly mindless as her desperation grew.

“Climb, Kiernan, climb!”

She didn’t need the husky warning. She could only pray that the rider in the street had dismounted and was following her own pursuer.

Her breath came quickly, and her heart hammered. She was gaining ground, though—of that she was certain. If she could reach the crest, she could race to the church. Perhaps she could wake Father Costello—perhaps he was already awake and at prayer. Maybe the church would provide a refuge.

As she reached the crest, her nightgown caught on a branch. Gasping for breath, she paused to tug it free.

Then hands fell upon her shoulders. She screamed as she was dragged to the ground. She struggled fiercely, seeing the hard-lipped white man atop her. She screamed again. His hand fell flat over her mouth, and she tried to bite. His fist went up in the air, and she knew that it would connect shortly with her jaw.

But it didn’t.

Instead, the man’s eyes went very wide. Kiernan was dimly aware that a leather-gloved hand had clamped onto the man’s wrist. Someone was behind him. The rider, tall and fierce, dragged her attacker from her.

She heard a wicked-sounding blow connect with the man’s body.

But she screamed anew, for the earth beneath her had broken under the conflict. She couldn’t catch herself, and she started to fall over the side of the cliff, above sheer rock.

“Kiernan!”

For a moment she saw him, tall and in uniform, dark in the shadows, holding on to her attacker.

He thrust the man away and pitched forward to come rolling after her.

His body covered her, and his weight threw them both far to the left and back to the trail. They tumbled endlessly together back to the yard.

They landed with her on top. Coughing, dizzy, she tried to rise. And stared down into endlessly blue eyes.

“Jesse!” she gasped. “Jesse Cameron!”

He smiled his lazy, taunting smile. “Hello, Miss Mackay. It’s been a while, hasn’t it? But then, a man never knows quite when he’ll run into you, eh, Kiernan?”

Two

“When you’ll run into me?” Kiernan repeated. It was too incredible that he was there. She was straddled over him in her white nightgown with its lace and smocking, now torn and disheveled. Her hands rested upon his chest, and her hair trailed over the navy blue of the uniform cavalry shirt he was wearing. His hair, like her own, was in reckless disarray, dark strands trailing over his forehead. “Oh, my God, it’s Jesse!”

“In the flesh,” he agreed.

She suddenly cuffed him upon the broad chest. “And rude and abrasive at that!”

He slipped his hands around her waist, lifting her to his side. She should have risen instantly, Kiernan thought, mortified, but he had only moved her in order to rise to his feet. Once he was up, he reached for her hands, pulling her up before him. “Kiernan—”

“What are you doing here?” she demanded. “How can you be here?”

“The night train spread the word,” Jesse said. “I was sharing a late whiskey with a general friend, and he ordered me here to tend to any wounded. Troops will be here soon.”

“What’s going on?”

“Kiernan, that will have to wait. I have to find that man.”

“Jesse, he knew
who
I was and
where
I was!”

“I know.”

“But what—”

“Get back into the house.” He strode away, picking up his hat where it lay in the dirt.

“What if he comes again? There were two of them.”

He strode back to her, pulling a Colt six-shooter from the holster that hung on his hip. “You know how to use this?”

She nodded. He grinned at her and touched her cheek. “He’s probably long gone by now. Get back into the house, Kiernan, and stay there until I get back. All right?”

She nodded slowly. A quivery warmth spread through her limbs. She stretched out her fingers and clenched them tightly again.

Jesse Cameron was back in her life. He’d ridden in just when she needed him most. He could have captured the man, except that he had thrown himself upon her to save her from a deadly fall.

In his dark clothing, he blended into the foliage, even as the sun unerringly began to rise. She heard rustling and knew that he had found his way back up the cliff. But she was certain, as he had been, that the man was long gone. The cliff rose all the way to Jefferson’s Rock, where Thomas Jefferson had surveyed the area, and on to the cemetery; it was hard, rugged ground. But there were numerous other ways down, and even a stranger to the area would have found them by now.

She felt her cheeks grow warm, and she pressed her hands to them tightly. Jesse. He shouldn’t have been there, but he was. He lacked Anthony’s manners, perhaps, but manners weren’t necessary to save her life.

She turned and quickly hurried back toward the house. Lacey was waiting for her by the back door. “Kiernan! Oh, thank heaven! What happened? Who was that man in the yard? Why, I almost came out with the rolling pin, except that you were on top of him and you seemed to know him. Really, Kiernan, that wasn’t at all proper behavior if you did know him—or if you didn’t,” Lacey mused worriedly. “But then, what difference does it make? You’re back here, and you’re safe—and you do know him, don’t you, dear?”

“Yes. Oh, Lacey, something very big is going on. You
know him too. It was Jesse—Jesse Cameron, one of our neighbors back home.”

“What’s he doing here?”

“An alarm went on via the night train. He didn’t explain everything. Some general sent faim here. There will be troops soon.”

“But why?” Lacey began. “Oh dear, yes! He’s a doctor, isn’t he? Still serving in the military. Oh, my goodness!” She stared at the Colt in Kiernan’s hand. “Can’t we put that thing away somewhere?”

“I think I’d like to have it close.”

“Those men aren’t coming back,” Lacey said with confidence.

“How can you be sure?”

“Come with me.” Lacey led Kiernan through the house to the front, where the shattered glass still lay before the door. “Look,” Lacey said, pointing through the door.

Kiernan looked down the street. A crowd had gathered outside the arsenal buildings now. Armed men were milling in the streets. Someone was in charge, and shouting was going on.

“It’s all out in the open now,” Lacey murmured.

Kiernan heard footsteps on the wooden sidewalk to their right and swung around quickly. One of Lacey’s neighbors, Mr. Tomlin, was hurrying along. He carried a rifle and was speaking to his sixteen-year-old, Eban, who followed behind him. “Give me some more o’ them nails, boy.” He stopped in front of Lacey and Kiernan. “Don’t that beat all, ladies? We produce guns here, and just when you want it, there ain’t no ammunition to be bought. But heck, that’s all right. We’ll nail ’em just the same, eh?” He winked at Kiernan, and she saw that he was loading his rifle with nails.

“Mr. Tomlin,” she murmured, “what are you doing?”

“There’s a rebellion in the streets, Miss Mackay, ain’t you seen?” He stared at her for the first time and saw her torn and ragged gown and the tufts of grass that stuck to her hair. “Bejesu, Miss Mackay, are you all right?”

Kiernan nodded as Lacey answered for her.

“She’s fine now! But she wasn’t so terribly fine an hour ago!”

“They tried to take you! They tried to take you too!” Eban Tomlin said, staring at Kiernan with awe.

“Who else did they try to take?” Kiernan demanded tensely.

“Try? Why, they got all kinds of people. They got the mayor! And the master armorer. And they even rode five miles out and got Colonel Lewis Washington, George Washington’s kin! They say as how Colonel Lewis had things belonging to George, and John Brown wanted those things,” Eban said excitedly. “’Course, Brown come in here calling himself ‘Isaac Smith,’ but it didn’t take no time for someone to guess who it really was!”

“Oh, my Lord!” Lacey breathed.

“And they got more. Reckon they got at least twenty people hostage, maybe more.”

“Lacey heard shots,” Kiernan said.

“Hell, yes!” Eban said. His father’s look of warning brought a flush to his face. “Sorry, ladies. Yes, there’s been shooting. And it just beats all, it sure does. Old John Brown, he wants to free the world. Well, ladies, he comes into Harpers Ferry and shoots down poor Hayward Shepherd, the free black man at the railroad station. Guess they didn’t want no alarm going out. But then the train came through, and he let that train go on by, and it seems they know what’s going on down here as far as Washington and beyond. You’d best get back inside now, ladies. There’s all manner o’ ruckus going on in the streets now. Some o’ those people out there get a little scared and get a gun and shoot up everything in sight.”