The aide had referred her to a Colonel Collingswood, the commander of Fort Marcy, who was not only unsympathetic but downright rude.
Rayna could have tolerated his brusqueness if there had been any chance that he could help her secure the return of her sister and the Rancho Verde Mescaleros, but even if he had wanted to, the colonel did not possess the authority to countermand General Whitlock’s order.
After another day wasted, she had returned to department headquarters and threatened bodily harm to the next person who prevented her from seeing the general. Her threat had been to no avail. She was told that the general had left Fort Marcy and no one was certain when he would return.
It had taken nearly a week for Rayna to ferret out the information that Whitlock was on a holiday with several visiting dignitaries from Washington.
While Skylar endured God only knew what on the reservation, the general was bear hunting in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains.
Rayna’s first impulse had been to follow Whitlock’s trail and track him down in the mountains, but she had quickly realized the folly of such an act.
She could sooner find a needle in a haystack than a small hunting party in the mountains. Her only alternative had been to wait, making daily visits to his office and growing more frustrated with every wasted day.
She had, of course, called on all of her father’s friends in the territorial government, including the governor himself. All had been sympathetic and supportive, but short of writing letters on her behalf there was nothing they could do to countermand General Whitlock’s edict.
Telegrams from her mother reported that Raymond was weak but mending. Though Collie never said so directly, Rayna inferred that he was growing suspicious about his daughters’ long absence. When he had learned that the
“girls” were waiting for General Whitlock to return from his hunting trip, Raymond hadn’t understood why they didn’t come home to wait. He had slipped into a state of melancholy, and seeing his daughters would have been a boon to his recovery.
Had Raymond known the truth, Rayna would have gone home for at least a day or two to see him, but she hadn’t been willing to take the chance that 73
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learning of Skylar’s abduction would cause him to have another heart seizure.
So she had stayed in Santa Fe, sick with worry about her father and her sister.
And she was beginning to worry about her mother, too. Collie was such an innately honest person that it must have been difficult for her to lie to her husband. What was worse, though, was that Collie had no one with whom to share her deep concern for Skylar. Rayna had no doubt that her mother was keeping up the pretense, but the strain had to be taking a dreadful emotional toll on her. She prayed that on this, her tenth daily visit to Whitlock’s office, she would finally find him there and put an end to this nightmare.
When she arrived, she found instead a kind of frenetic chaos, as though something had thrown everyone into a panic. Officers were moving quickly through the halls, doors were slamming, men were shouting orders. In Whitlock’s outer office, his aide told Rayna that the general would certainly be back within a day or, at most, two days. For the first time, Rayna actually believed him, because it was clear that something had happened to upset the quiet routine of the military post. But of course no one would tell her what that was.
Frustrated, she left the office with a promise to return again that afternoon.
As she left the building she was nearly bowled over by an officer bounding up the steps. He muttered a hasty but heartfelt apology, then disappeared inside.
The parade ground stretched out in front of the building, and to the right of that were the officers’ quarters, soldiers’ barracks, and the office of Fort Marcy’s commander, Colonel Collingswood. Far beyond that, at the top of the hill that formed the northern boundary of Santa Fe, stood Fort Marcy itself, a small walled fortress that acted as a guardian of the city.
What was it guarding today? Rayna wondered as she paused to study the fort in the distance. What had happened to set everyone in such an uproar?
The most obvious answer was Indian trouble. Had Geronimo come out of his stronghold in the Sierra Madre, or had another tribe of Apaches gone on the warpath?
Despite the intense August heat, the question chilled Rayna to the bone. If there was trouble on the Mescalero reservation, Skylar could be in terrible danger, and there wasn’t one blessed thing Rayna could do about it.
Immobilized by fear and frustration, she stood by the white picket fence watching an infantry drill on the parade grounds without actually absorbing any of the intricacies of the soldiers’ movements.
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6
Skirting the edge of the parade ground, Meade moved briskly toward the headquarters building, ignoring the infantry drill taking place on his left. He’d seen the routine far too often to be impressed by the pageantry. He tipped his hat to the ladies strolling along Palace Avenue and waved away the cloud of dust that poured over him when a carriage went careening down the street.
Halfway down the long block he glanced at the headquarters, and when he spotted the woman at the foot of the steps he cursed his foolish imagination. He’d been back in Santa Fe less than twenty-four hours, and already every fair-haired woman he saw made him think of Rayna Templeton. This elegantly dressed lady in the slim-skirted walking suit and feathered boater was probably the wife of a visitor or some new officer. She was not the hot-tempered hellion who had been plaguing his sleep for the last fortnight. Miss Templeton was long gone, having most likely completed her business with the general before Meade had caught up with the men of Cavalry Company B on their way to the Mescalero reservation.
Unfortunately that near-certainty couldn’t keep Meade from glancing in the lady’s direction again and again as he progressed down the walk. By the 75
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time he reached the picket fence that framed the headquarters building, he was surprised and irritated to discover that his heartbeat was quickening like that of a randy schoolboy in the throes of his first bout with puppy love. The woman ahead of him gazing with apparent concentration at the infantry drill was indeed Rayna Templeton.
Meade’s first clear thought was that he should do an abrupt about-face and slink off like a thief in the night. His feet—and other parts of his anatomy—had other ideas, though, for his pace quickened rather than slowed. He managed to convince himself that curiosity fueled his haste, since he had been coming to headquarters in the hope of finding out how General Whitlock had resolved the injustice that had been done to the Templeton family.
“Miss Templeton?”
Startled, Rayna pulled her thoughts away from her dismal speculations about her sister and turned. When she saw the officer at her side, nothing could have quelled the flush of pleasure that coursed through her. “Major Ashford! Thank God you’re back.”
She grabbed his hands and squeezed them as though clutching a lifeline, and Meade was too shocked by her greeting to even consider pulling away. “I arrived last night,” he informed her. “But I’m amazed to find you here, Miss Templeton. I assumed you were well on your way to the Mescalero reservation with an order to free your sister.”
“General Whitlock left on holiday before I could get an appointment to see him. I’ve been waiting ever since,” she said hastily, then with a touch of desperation asked, “How is Skylar? When did you last see her? Was she well?”