course he did!” Melissa’s blond curls moved with her bobbing head. She delicately touched the bow and ribbon at the side of her neck, making sure her straw bonnet was in place. “Why, I overheard my husband talking about Sergeant McCoy.”
“What did he say? What did he say?”
Melissa smiled, fanning herself rapidly, hating the heat. Having to wear a corset, all those petticoats, plus a long-sleeved cotton dress, was simply too much. “According to my husband, Sergeant McCoy was a lieutenant up at Fort Apache. He ran off with Juliet Harper, wife of the commandant.”
“Did he love her?” Claudia asked, batting her eyelashes.
“It was something,” Melissa agreed coyly. And judging from McCoy’s lean, powerful build, she could see why Juliet Harper had wanted to run off with him. So would she. Yes, McCoy was definitely a stallion. She kept her thoughts to herself, realizing Claudia, who had been gently reared in Boston, would faint if she voiced them out loud. She was like any other brass-button bride: naive. And having come to the West only three months before, she was still adjusting to post life.
“He’s positively handsome, don’t you think?”
“He’ll do in a pinch,” Melissa said with a shrug. Beneath the surface, she seethed with anger. A week after arriving at the fort, she had purposely caught McCoy alone in the stable. When she’d approached him and ran her hand along his sweaty bronzed arm, his eyes had turned a glacial blue. And when she’d pressed herself to his hard, tense body, McCoy had stepped back. Murmuring something about enlisted men not fraternizing with officers or their wives, he’d turned on his heel, leaving her humiliated.
Melissa snorted. Any time she approached Claudia’s husband, Dodd, he was more than willing to meet her in the hay mow. And so was any other man at the post she wanted. She hated the fact that McCoy had snubbed her advance. No man ever had before. One way or another, Melissa promised herself that he would come begging to bed her.
Giggling, Claudia added, “Pinch, my foot! My husband tells me that McCoy has been out in the Southwest for seven years. He’s rough-looking.”
“Probably every laundress on the post is ogling him,” Melissa stated, pretending not to be watching McCoy. He had been busted because he’d tried to help Juliet Harper escape and return to her home in the East. Melissa had heard about McCoy from time to time, because he’d been an officer at Fort Apache and responsible for the Apache reservation nearby.
Studying McCoy, Melissa decided he was ten times the man that her flabby, fifty-five-year-old husband was. She smiled to herself. Harvey was such a dolt. He never realized she hadn’t been a virgin when she’d married him. Of course, she’d made him think otherwise. After having young men who were truly studs in comparison to Harvey, she ached to find a man to match her hungry desire. Harvey certainly couldn’t. Dodd wasn’t bad, but was unexciting in comparison to McCoy. She fumed, fanning herself more rapidly. She was utterly frustrated by the fact her husband made love to her once a month and treated her like delicate porcelain, afraid she’d break beneath his weight.
McCoy had been at the post for three months now. Most of the cavalry soldiers were unmarried. The only way these men relieved their urges was with some of the single laundresses or white women who posed as such, but were on their backs day and night. According to the colored laundress, Poppy, McCoy stayed to himself.
“Outcast,” she muttered.
“What?” Claudia asked.
“Oh…nothing.”
Claudia, who had red hair and dancing gray eyes, pouted. She stood restlessly on the squeaky wooden expanse, tapping her fingers against her lavender gingham gown. “Oh, pshaw. I wish there was something to do. Post life is so boring, Mellie. The men are always gone, hunting those dreadful Apaches. We’ve nothing but sand and heat to keep us company. I can’t keep our quarters clean for the sand. How I long for some green trees and hills.”
Melissa shrugged her shapely shoulders. “There’s no use complaining about it, Claudia. You know they only stick men out West that the army has no use for. Out of sight, out of mind.”
“Ohhh,” Claudia whined, “don’t say that. Why, Dodd dreams of getting orders to go back East.”
With a grimace, Melissa flicked a fly away from her face. “You’re new here, Claudia. Believe me, the only men the army sends West are those they consider misfits, and of no potential use to the military system.”
Moaning, Claudia rolled her eyes upward. “You’ve only been married for five years and already you know so much about the army.”
Too bad I didn’t learn it sooner, Melissa thought. Harvey Polk had presented a bold and swaggering picture in uniform at a ball in Washington, D.C. He had been a hero coming out of the Civil War, and was an attaché to the Secretary of War. How could she have known he was such a loser about to be sent West and forgotten? Her marriage was one scheme that had fallen through.
She had married Harvey thinking that he was in line for a much more prestigious job in Washington. Instead, four days after the ceremony, he’d received orders to Fort Huachuca, Arizona. Melissa knitted her fine, thin eyebrows in vexation. There was nothing but sand, scorpions, heat and loneliness at the post. At first, she’d been one of three wives. Over the years, colored laundresses had moved West to escape the South and married the Negro cavalrymen of the Fourth stationed here. What few white laundresses there were, were nothing but soiled doves, as far as she was concerned. No self-respecting white woman would wash laundry like a colored. Of course, laundresses, and their families were considered little more than just necessities to post life, but they were certainly not included in it. They were animals of toil, in Melissa’s opinion.
Still, she held out hope that Harvey would leave the army and run for governor or senator. There was power in either of those positions. Melissa’s wandering gaze moved back to McCoy, who was now checking with the guards at the main gate of the post.
Since that day she had flaunted herself in front of him, Melissa’s further plans to meet him again had failed miserably. He was always polite when he had to confront her on occasion, but she’d seen the amusement in his icy blue eyes. It was as if he could read her mind. With an unladylike snort, Melissa decided that was impossible. A man’s brains hung between his legs. She stepped off the porch, her feet sinking into an inch of dust. She intended to intercept the sergeant and force him to take notice of her.
“Come, Claudia. Let’s walk around the parade ground. I need my morning exercise.”
Picking up her skirt, Claudia scrambled to catch up with the older woman as she glided across the parade ground. “Dear me, Mellie! Why are you in such a hurry?”
* * *
“Sergeant McCoy?”
Gib turned to the sentry standing by the opened gates, Private Lemuel Ladler, a Negro boy of eighteen. “What is it, Ladler?”
“I see something out there, suh. Take a look.” He pointed to beyond the wavering curtains of heat across the desert.
Squinting, Gib turned and directed his attention to the cactus-strewn desert. Sure enough, he saw a lone rider. And if he wasn’t mistaken, it was an Indian.
“Looks like an Apache,” he muttered.
Ladler’s eyes rounded, and he quickly pulled the rifle off his shoulder, holding it ready
