Lynna Banning - The Angel Of Devil's Camp

He chuckled. The deer that gobbled Fong’s tomatoes would be far bolder than a man hankering to sneak a shot of rye!

He snatched up his account book, thumbed the pages, then slapped it down on the desk again. Damn, he wished he had some of that turkey sauce now!

He whittled the tip of his goose quill pen, fiddled with the bottle of brown ink. Finally he rose and took four steps to the front of the tent, four steps back to his makeshift desk, then repeated the circuit.

He felt another sleepless night coming on. In fact, he was so out of sorts he should probably be guarding the tomatoes and let Fong get some shut-eye. Peabody’s death had stirred up old memories.

Every single time he got riled up over something he lay awake thinking about Susanna and the ill-informed junior officers with the oh-so-gentlemanly manners who had executed her. Tom had gotten there too late to save her; instead, he’d had to bury her. He’d spent the last seven years trying to forget his failure.

His belly tightened into a hard knot. Just the sound of a soft Southern drawl set his teeth on edge. Lucky thing Peabody hadn’t talked much like a Confederate boy; otherwise, he’d never have been able to stomach the man. But Walt Peabody had spent more years in Oregon than he had in the South and talked pretty Western before the war even started.

Walt’s widow, or fiancée, or whatever she was, was another matter. Mary Margaret Hampton was a Southern belle from her toes to her crown, and he’d hated her guts the minute she opened her mouth. A woman exactly like her had accused Susanna and, worse, had testified against her in court.

Tom flopped onto his cot, shucked off his boots and trousers, and stretched out full length with his head resting on his folded arms. He spent too many nights like this, staring at the canvas tent ceiling or out into the dark. He was wasting his life.

A light glowed on the rise beyond the cookhouse. He squinted his eyes. The cabin. Must be a lantern or a candle burning inside; the flame shone through the chinks in the split-log walls.

He watched the light wink on and off as something—likely Miss Hampton—moved back and forth in front of the source. What was she doing, pacing up and down like that? That’s what he usually did at night. It was damned unsettling to lie here and watch someone else do it. He felt like he was watching himself.

The light flickered out, reappeared. It reminded him of the signals the Cheyenne made with hand-held mirrors. He stared at it, trying to clear his mind of Miss Mary Margaret Hampton, until his eyelids drifted shut.

Meggy woke with a start. What was that?

Something rustled in the brush outside the cabin. She raised her head, listening. A shaft of moonlight fell through the open window above the sink, silhouetting the ball of dough on the sill and the six lumps that were her stolen apples.

The rustling came again, closer this time. Without a sound, she sat up and swung her feet to the floor. Pulling her father’s revolver from under the heap of garments where she’d hidden it, she hefted it in both hands, crept to the window and peered out.

A huge, soft brown eye peered back at her. A sleek brown head ducked, then lifted again. A wide rack of antlers gleamed in the pale light.

A deer! Probably the one that foraged in Fong’s tomatoes. The animal took a tentative step forward, stopped, then sniffed the air.

Oh, no! Not my piecrust!

“Shoo!” she cried. Her voice came out no louder than a whisper. “Go away, please!”

The stag took two more steps. Meggy raised the revolver, closed her eyes and squeezed the trigger.

The shot brought Tom out of bed so fast he smacked his head on the tent pole. Great jumping catfish, what in the—

A woman screamed.

He yanked on his pants, jammed his feet into his boots and began to run. In the dark he could barely see the trail. Keeping low to the ground, he headed in the general direction of the noise.

Moonlight, he thought as he stumbled past the cookhouse, was one of God’s greatest ideas!

All the way up the hill, Tom could hear the sound of a woman crying. It cut into his belly like a shot of rotgut whiskey and made him blind with rage. He didn’t know why, but he’d never been able to stomach a woman’s tears.

When he could see the dark outline of the cabin in the moonlight, he slowed to a walk. If she could cry, she could breathe. That answered one question.

The other question—Why?—he answered when he stumbled over the carcass of a deer.

Someone had killed tomorrow’s supper. The shot must have scared the ginger out of her, but the thought of venison steaks made him smile. He stepped around the dead animal and headed for the glimmer of white on the porch ahead of him.

“Miss Hampton? It’s Tom Randall.”

When he stepped forward, she jerked upright. “Oh! Please come no farther, C-Colonel Randall. I am not p-properly attired.” She sounded like she had the hiccups.

Tom spun on one heel so his back was to her. “Who shot the deer?”

“I—I did,” she confessed between sobs. “At least I think I did. I had my eyes closed.”

Tom knelt to inspect the animal. “Mighty good shot, ma’am. Clean and true, right into the head.”

“Oh, the poor, dear thing. I meant only to scare it away, not kill it!”

Poor dear thing? He sneaked a look at her. Arms locked about her white-shrouded legs, she rocked back and forth, her forehead pressed against her knees.

“I feel just awful about shooting it. It had such big, soft eyes.”

Two things warred for Tom’s attention—the revolver lying beside her and her hair tumbling loose about her shoulders. He struggled to keep his mind on the gun.

“Where’d you learn to shoot?”

She choked back a sob. “My father taught me, before he went off to his military post. He said I had a g-good eye.”

“And a steady hand, it would appear. Miss Hampton, you might as well dry your tears and make the best of it. The boys’ll be grateful to you for supplying some good meat.”

“I—I will try.” She gazed at him with a stricken look. “I just feel so…mean!”

He stuffed down a chuckle. “You ever shoot anything before?”

She nodded. “I shot a Yankee once. In the backyard of the parsonage. He was after our last two chickens, you see, and I…I hit him in the shoulder. I offered to dress the wound, but he swore something dreadful and skedaddled over the back fence.”

So she’d lived in a parsonage, had she? A preacher’s daughter with good eyesight and guts. Now, why should that surprise him? All Southerners were murdering bastards hiding under a cloak of gentility. He’d learned that in Richmond. His jaw tightened.

“I hear somebody coming, Miss Hampton. You might want to put on a robe.”

Meggy scrambled to her feet. The colonel stood before her, both hands jammed in his trouser pockets. Mercy me, he wore no shirt!

She stared at the bare skin of his chest, at the muscles cording his broad shoulders. Never in her whole life had she seen a man without his shirt, not even Papa. She gulped. Even her intended, Mr. Peabody, had been laid out in his coffin fully dressed.

An odd, restless feeling crept over her as she gazed at the colonel’s tall frame. Why, he looked strong enough to—

Sergeant O’Malley crashed out of the trees and into the clearing. “For the love of God, Tom, what’s goin’ on? I heard a shot, and when I found your tent empty…well, I thought maybe you’d—What’s this, now?”

The Irishman stared down at the dead stag. “Well, I’ll be smithereened! You killed us a deer, Tom.”

“I didn’t exactly…”

Meggy slipped inside the front door and listened to Tom’s voice floating from the porch. “Think we can dress it out here?”