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She was so relieved that he had treated her decently even though she had seen the doubt in his eyes about what she wore.
Still her explanation seemed to have satisfied him. He had offered her kindness and a place to stay . . . even offered to search for her son.
Breathlessly, she knocked hard on the colonel’s front door, the cat still purring contentedly in her arms. The purring gave Mary Beth a sense of com
fort.
It was the quiet contentedness of her cat’s purring that had always made Mary Beth feel warm inside when something troubled her back home, especially during those first weeks when her husband was gone to a distant land to be placed in harm’s way.
Then her cat had helped get her through the tearful moments while she tried to find the courage to join her husband and tell him news that she knew would greatly disturb him.
“And, Lord, it did, oh, how it did,” she whispered, tears hot again on her cheeks.
As she waited for the colonel Mary Beth looked around the fort’s grounds.
It seemed strange that no wives or children were at this fort, yet perhaps it was a wise decision on the colonel’s part. If Indians did successfully attack the fort, the children and wives would be at their mercy.
The door swung open so quickly, the cat jumped from Mary Beth’s arms with alarm.
She saw it scurrying into the cabin between the colonel’s legs; more than likely it was the colonel’s pet.
“Ma’am?” Colonel Downing asked as he absently ran one hand through his thick, sandy hair; the other held a lighted kerosene lamp. “What are you doing here in the middle of the night?” The moon reflected on the blade of the knife, catching the colonel’s eyes. He stared at it, then looked quickly at Mary Beth again. “Why do you have that knife? Has something happened?”
Mary Beth looked anxiously over her shoulder, then again into the colonel’s questioning blue eyes. “Can I come in?” she asked, fear obvious in her voice.
Colonel Downing stepped aside. “Why, yes,” he said, motioning her inside with his free hand. “Do come in and tell me what has brought you to me at this ungodly hour.”
She brushed past him, glad when he had the door closed, putting a barrier between her and the horrible assailant.
“You are trembling,” Colonel Downing said, holding the lamp farther out so that he could see her better. “Something terrible must have happened to you.”
“Yes, it did,” Mary Beth said. She wiped tears from her eyes with her free hand as she held the knife at her side with the other. She had never had the need to defend herself before coming to this wilderness. She was beginning to feel foreign to herself in many ways, because her life had taken such a different turn.
From now on, it would be different, for she would be living among a different people, learning their ways, being a chief’s wife. It all seemed like a dream.
The best part of that dream was Brave Wolf.
She rushed into telling the colonel what had happened and described her assailant as best she could. She thanked the good Lord that the moon had lit the cabin, or she would never have seen her assailant.
“His voice was filled with such loathing,” she said, her own voice breaking.
“Let me see your throat,” Colonel Downing said, stepping closer and holding the lamp so that he could see her better.
His eyes narrowed angrily when he saw the red imprint of the man’s hand there. The skin was already bruising.
“The damn idiot,” he cursed. “The cowardly sonofabitch. What was he thinking?”
“He was not thinking, he was doing,” Mary Beth said as the colonel took her gently by the arm and led her into the living quarters of the cabin. “He wanted to kill me. If I hadn’t thought fast enough and hurt him where no man wants to be hurt, then grabbed his knife from its sheath, I would even now be dead.”
“Thank God you were able to react so effectively during such an assault,” Colonel Downing said, setting the lamp on a table.
Mary Beth looked slowly around herself at the grandeur of the room. The walls provided a stunning backdrop for a Regency mirror over the mantel and a gilt-and-bronze chandelier.
Most striking of all was the elaborate French wallpaper and the carved side chairs upholstered in gilded leather.
Large neoclassical friezes and chunky molding added height to the windows, making Mary Beth momentarily forget that this was a cabin. The interior could have graced a mansion in France or England.
She was suddenly certain that a woman had lived here, even though the rules forbade it. There were lacy doilies on the arms and backs of the plushly upholstered chairs. Pretty, delicately painted ceramic figurines sat on tables and shelves.
